I'm getting a lot of Google hits from people looking for "melting pennies" and "melting pennies for profit". I wrote this article to note some of the interesting side effects of the problem of devalued currency in India.

It never occurred to me that people would take this idea seriously in the USA.

If it weren't illegal, would it be worth the trouble? Let's look at it a little closer.

First off, attempting to melt coins for scrap metal is illegal. The United States Mint issued a press release, which reminded the public that melting coins for scrap will result in a fine of not more than $10,000, or imprisonment of not more than five years, or both. Don't do it, it ain't worth 5 years in the grey bar hotel.

As of this writing, copper is worth $3.3967/lb. Current prices for metals can be found a lot of places, including Kitco Base Metals. In practice, you'd be using a local scrap metal dealer, who likely pays a lot less.

OK, assume you've got a place to sell your melted copper. How much copper is in a penny?

Well, it depends. Copper content by year:
-1793-1909 Penny is 100% copper
-1909-1982 Penny is 95% copper
-1982-2007 Penny is 2.5% copper

There is the famous exception of the 1943 steel penny, which is 0% copper. World War 2 was using copper for more important things at the time.

OK, so we've established that only pennies older than 1982 have enough copper to be worth going after. So let's assume you've got a way to sort out pennies by date. Just how much is that copper worth?

Well, according to the CoinFlation web site, there's about 2.1 cents worth of metal (both copper and zinc) in 1909-1982 vintage U.S. pennies.

OK, let's assume that you're still dealing with 1982 or older pennies. How much metal are we talking about melting? Well, there's about 146 old pennies to a pound. To melt that pound of metal, you're going to need a lot of heat. A lot of heat. Copper melts at 1,984°F or 1,084°C. Your average blow torch will reach 1,300°C, which means you can just barely melt copper with some patience. And a lot of fuel.

So in summary, to melt copper for profit, you would need:
-No conscience and/or the ability to spend 5 year behind bars without much trouble
-Access to a very large quantity of pennies
-Ability to sort pennies by year, in large quantity, at almost no cost
-A high temperature torch to melt metal
-A very cheap fuel source for above torch or high temp heater
-Ability to safely separate the molten copper from the zinc
-place to sell scrap copper without triggering the first point

...and once you've gotten past that, let's say you invested a day or two acquiring 10 pounds of pennies, sorted to verify they are the right years. You'd have:
-$32.27 in scrap copper
-$0.71 in scrap zinc (if you even want to bother with this)
-less $14.60 in the face value of the pennies
-Net: $17.67
-This is before all costs to acquire, sort, and melt 10 pounds of pennies. I suspect fuel for melting the copper would eat a very large percentage of this.
-This whole process would take many hours, possibly days.

Executive summary: In theory you can melt pennies for profit, but it only works if you're doing it on an industrial scale. Odds are you'd make more working a minimum wage job.


Related Links:
-Melting Pennies for Profit, Part 1
--It's possible to dissolve the zinc in a penny, leaving only the thin copper shell. Make a hollow penny!
-Calculator for metal value in coins
-2007 plan to change metal composition in coins, again