Canadian Government set to collect all pennies starting 2013 for "recycling"

reply to post by Ben81


When they stop using them as legal tender you can melt them down. I have a hundred lbs of them. I am not sure the face value but whatever it is I will get triple it when I can melt them. So If I cash it in I would get around 360 dollars for the copper and that is well over the face value.

reply to post by GogoVicMorrow


Well that might not work either.

If the government starts melting down that much copper and selling it, they are going to drive the price of copper down and you might not make any money at all.

~Tenth

We should go a step further and completely reform our monetary system. Borrowing OUR money from private banks is insane and is destroying the entire world. Canada can and should lead the way in a currency that is based on value and not debt. Money is the mother of all conspiracies and the penny is not worth arguing about, in my opinion, when in reality our dollar is losing more and more value simply because we have to pay interest on money that has been created out of nothing.

reply to post by Ben81


Hang on to them until it becomes legal to melt the pennies into copper scrap and then CASH IN!

reply to post by tothetenthpower


Nah. It might a bit, but copper has way to many uses.

reply to post by nighthawk1954


Awesome site. I have never used it. I didn't know my VDB was worth anything (it's a no mintmark VDB so I just threw it in a penny book).

I go to my Bank and I get $30 of pennies a week, it is a small bank so they save rolls of pennies that are turned in. I sort them while I watch TV.

I have a cup on my desk that I save pennies in. I just went thru it and right off the bat I found 1979,1961, 1982.

These are all from recent transactions. It is a coffee cup and as it gets full of change I rap them.

35 billion pennies doesn't equal $100 billion in melt value, folks. A penny is 1/100th of a dollar. This is actually about $1 billion worth of pennies. So, it's a pretty modest amount of money to inconvenience everyone over, IMO.

reply to post by burdman30ott6


What?

Originally posted by TKDRL
reply to post by burdman30ott6

 

What?

Re-read the OP. I don't see a source for it, but there is a claim of "35billion pennies" floating around Canada. This became $105 billion"melt value" which was latched onto in subsequent posts. If, in fact, there are 35 billion Canadian pennies to be "recycled" that's only $1.05 billion, not $105 billion.

ETA: I'd directly quote the portion of the OP and other comments I'm talking about here, but I'm on a tablet and quoting/copy/paste is a royal pain.

The common sense approach would be to fix inflation - and keep the penny.

People can say what they want but I was laughed at when I began searching for silver quarters and dimes and I have found quite a bit of free money. I also find TONS AND TONS of 1982 and earlier pennies in my everyday change so they are extremely easy to currently find.

Copper is going to rise and even with our gov melting pennies it will not drive the price down nowhere near enough to counter the rise based on the demand which is freaking high as anyone who has followed metal prices for a while would know.

I plan to turn at least 5k into 15k if not more for a 2.5 year investment project which I spend into gradually over time by just saving and buying pennies.

People would be surprised to see how much money is just lying around in various forms waiting for the right person to cash in.

reply to post by burdman30ott6


You are right that was my mistake.

OP I don't get how this constitutes fraud? I wish my government were a bit more switched on like the Canadian government. This is an excellent idea. Pennies are no longer needed due to years of inflation rendering them almost valueless. Why sit on these pretty much useless coins when you could collect them in and melt them down to tripple your money and then reinvest this money into the countries infrastructure. Makes sense to me.

They are cashing in (or out!) as the price of copper has gone way up.

I don't really care about this other than it's another case of "it's ok for me to do it but don't you try!"

Melting down pennies is "illegal" so long as they are legal tender... someone mentioned doing it after they have been taken completely out of circulation, but there are laws being passed even now that are making it harder to "cash in" yourself.

see: www.vancouversun.com...

Sellers must provide a name, address, phone number, date of birth, and vehicle description. Police will need a court order to access the seller's information.
Sellers with more than $50 in metal will be paid by cheque, not cash - to reduce "walk-in traffic by individuals who want quick cash."

Tracking tracking tracking... and then if you commit the sin of bringing in more than $50 worth you have to take a cheque which means... even more tracking and paper trails.


[ BTW I collect all the pennies that cross my hands (and older dimes/quarters too) and MANY of them are older. Last week I actually got TWO 1941 pennies in change, along with a 1967 Centennial Bunny Nickel ]

reply to post by michael1983l


Like the poster above stated, it is only being done to cash in off the rising metal prices. These coins were minted when copper was at a much lower price and they realized that and switched to copper plated zinc pennies when the cost got too high. Now they are cashing in on the scrap metal. If they were to prove that the money would go back into the infrastructure then sure it would be a good thing! Unfortunately when this money should be used to pay off our debt, this will go to the big cats who decided this would be a good idea. And to the poster above I also agree that it is wrong on so many levels that the government can decide to say no you can't melt down the coins or sell them, but we can. That alone is rubbing it in our faces.

Quick make a penny collection for future. They will cost 100x as much.

Originally posted by Blackmarketeer
The common sense approach would be to fix inflation - and keep the penny.

I wish more people could perform such basic reasoning. Good comment.

To everyone else unaware... The common misconception is that copper is becoming more valuable. Increase in value and increase in price are two totally different things. The "increase in price" of copper is caused by a "decrease in value" of the Canadian currency. Inflation = decrease in currency value

As for the future... Eventually through inflation the paper/materials used in a 20$ bill will be of higher value than 20$ currency. To be very clear the government will eventually spend more than 20$ cash to print each new 20$ bill if things do not change. It is the exact same argument as the penny. If you think this is an exageration then maybe you will take the governments word for it, because they openly acknowledge this trend. There is a spin off campaign to killing the penny called "MintChip". The government of Canada will be instituting a digital currency to replace cash.

There have been several posts on MintChip including my own thread, it got very few responses/flags. Apparently people including ATS users have become apathetic in regards to monetary policy. I am not going to bother linking proof. A quick google search for "MintChip" will provide official government websites and mainstream news articles. It is not conspiracy and there is no debate in regards to its existence. The Royal Canadian Mint just hired 300-400 software programmers in April 2012 to advance the project. Again do the research yourself, I encourage you to find one semi-credible source debunking MintChip.

As Blackmarketeer plainly stated, the simple solution is to fix inflation. But why do that when you can destroy the currency, get rid of pennies and develop a multi million dollar digital cash system paid for with tax payer money. Or paid for by printing new money further inflating the currency...

As far as I know there is no official release date for MintChip, but if you want my own personal prediction as a software developer who works with Banks and Insurance Companies I give it 5 years max. Assuming the world economy hasn't totally collapsed by then.

S+F on the OP, thanks for bringing the discussion back.

Originally posted by makemap
Quick make a penny collection for future. They will cost 100x as much.

Doesn't really count as an investment. Even if you sold them for 100x as much you would likely only be hedging inflation and be retired. When the day comes that you can sell a pennies materials for 100x its current price a single can of Coca Cola at the convenience store will cost 100$. Your buying power will not change. This is inflation, and this will happen.

That being said, you could have a very small margin of profit if there are shortages in said materials. Although that is unlikely with such a high amount of material being recycled come this september. You probably stand to lose value actually.