For Scrap Copper Collectors.

Do you like to collect the bits of scrap you dig up out on your metal detecting hunts. I do. Those bits of lead, brass, bronze, copper etc, all add up and there will come a day when I will cash them in at a scrap yard. And why not, not only does it add a bit of fun to your hunts, it puts a bit of cash in your pocket and it also helps the environment. I just pile it up in buckets out the back in a shed, keeping the lead and copper separated from all the the other metals.
The main source of copper I find are those pre-decimal pennies, halfpennies, and farthings, older Georgian grots and a lot of unrecognizable coins that you know are copper. These coins have been coming thick and fast and I now have a pretty few in a box pictured above. I can't remember how many kilos there are now of these coins, but a few. My aim is to cash it all in for a little nest egg when I retire in 4 years time. How much will I get, who knows, but at the moment the scrap price of copper has rocketed. Long may it continue :).

My first kilo of pre-1992 decimal copper coins.

Now recently I read something on a Facebook site where I can speed up my collecting of copper coins, (Thank you Roger at D&C Metal Detecting Rallies). I expect some of you know this already.  How I never thought about this before I will never know, must be my age. But I've just learn't that our 1p and 2p coins that are pre-1992 were made of 97% copper, just like the pre-decimal copper coins. As it works out in today's market, the price of the copper in a pre-1992 coin gives that 1p a scrap value of 2.10p and the 2p a scrap value of 4.11p. So those pre-1992 decimal 1p and 2p coins in your piggy bank are worth just over twice as much in scrap value.
You can check those figures and also see today's values at www.wolframalpha.com/

The pre-decimal coins above can of course be scrapped and melted down for their copper content now as they are not in circulation anymore, so making it legal.
But the 1p and 2p decimal coins are still legal tender and because they are still in circulation it is against the law to deface or melt these coins. Collecting of the 1p and 2p coins therefore have to be gathered for a future cash in, The way things are going I reckon within a few years they will go out of circulation and then they can be scrapped for cash.

All in all a sound investment I think, As well as checking the coins I dig I'm also checking the change from shops etc looking for those pre-1992 copper coins.
A TIP... You don't have to screw up your eyes trying to read the date on them like I have to, just run a magnet over them, pre-1992 copper coins will NOT stick to the magnet, but post 1992 coins will.