Ben,

I do the exact same thing as a currency hedge. I keep all of nice clean chunks I run into and sell the rest and purchase more ore. I was going to re-invest in AG as well, but after reading quite a bit, it seemed Brass and Lead was a better hedge in more and varied scenarios.


Quote Originally Posted by scrapperben View Post
Hi, with copper scrap prices quite low considering it probably costs as much to mine it,
do scrappers stack their best copper as investment?

it appears that when scrapping there are many ways to turn over bits for cash,
the steel, #2 copper, copper bearing, alloy's, brass, stainless, high & low grade circuit boards and so on.

copper, just like silver, gold, platinum is used for investment purposes, so wouldn't it make sense to stack
your premium copper as if it was bullion?
there's no doubt to me that scrapping for metals is hard work, so in order to make it pay in the long run,
more then just pocket money, or money in the bank, investing in fine copper is a good investment.

Copper is not an endless resource, it will run out one day, just like all precious metals will.

my format is sorta like this, keep the nice clean, heavy #1 copper as bullion, sell everything else
and use 40% of that money to put into other bullion, mostly silver.
I believe silver is very under valued compared to gold, at the moment 1 ounce of gold buys 58 ounces of silver,
now traditionally, like the last 2000 years, 1oz gold bought 16oz silver, this has to balance back one day, silver is used a lot more then gold and will probably run out first.

copper being very cheap could easily double in value overnight, it would be an awful shame to learn everything you did with #1 copper could of been twice as much today wouldn't it?
I feel that the scrap yards would love #1 copper, so little work in melting it into a pure ingot to resell.
in comparison, mining copper to make a pure ingot takes so much resources.

If your scrapping big volumes then you could probably bypass the metal recycler all together for the copper.
i'd be melting and pouring my own ingots and selling to the market that uses them for manufacturing.

anyways, so yeah, bullion.
money can vanish overnight, whether in your bank or under your bed, lots of history to show how people
had to burn paper money for fuel it was worthless, physical precious metal, in your hand is always valuable.
converting some of your cash into bullion is where one day you get paid big time for your hard work.



I see many youtube vids of scrappers busting their back for the day, cashing in on the metal and buying a case of beer, this is crap, it's ok for a treat, but will keep you in the exact same position for ever.
at least take 10% of every cent you make from scrapping and invest it in precious metal for a bit of wealth protection
and something awesome to show for all you hard work over the years to come.