Investing in $25 penny boxes

Pennies are fun. The copper ones from 1982 and pre 1982 are worth more than their face value (copper pennies are 95% copper and 5% zinc). This makes the copper penny worth more than twice its face value due to its metal value (and expected to become three times more valuable than its face value in the near future).

There’s tons of great rare penny finds such as misprinted, double-died pennies, error marks, rare penny mint vintages, and more. You can buy $25 penny boxes directly from your bank branch. There are 50 penny rolls in that box, containing 50 cents each. Depending on where you live, the copper penny content may vary greatly compared to the zinc penny content (zinc pennies newer than 1982 are 97.5% zinc and 2.5% copper). Cracking open penny rolls can take a toll on your wrists, so do so with care and caution. Or more to the point, which makes more sense: Getting sealed penny boxes or sealed penny bags?

You may have to open a commercial account and potentially pay fees due to the nature of picking up large volumes of pennies from your bank. Many tellers will provide you with boxed pennies for free, but only when available or they have extra penny boxes. It never hurts to simply ask your teller for a box of pennies now and then. This is the cheapest way to get pennies (if you can get them free from the bank), though definitely not that most advantageous and time efficient way. And even though the pennies are free, your time is not, nor is gas money. So free is a relative term.

Penny Boxes versus penny bags

When hoarding copper pennies (collecting copper pennies in bulk) one needs to consider time management as a critical factor. Buying $100 in penny boxes from a bank means 200 rolls of pennies to open. Buying $1000 in penny boxes from a bank means 2000 penny rolls to open. How long does it take you to open a roll? Are you doing irreversible damage to your wrists? What could you be doing instead of opening rolls? This is why sealed penny bags are much more advantageous. No penny rolls, just penny sorting. Time is the critical factor here.

The fact of investing is doing the math. After all, copper pennies are investing in copper and finding rare pennies is also an investment. Investments require mathematical calculations to determine their validness. Here’s an example to determine whether you should buy penny boxes from the bank or buy sealed pennies from us:

Take the total number of pennies you want to buy for the week, month, or whatever appropriate time period that works for you. Now conservatively calculate how much time it takes you to acquire those pennies from your bank. If you don’t spend any extra time (meaning you only pick up pennies when you are already going to the bank) then this part may equal zero (the only factor then becomes if you don’t get pennies as quickly as you’d like. If you want pennies faster than you do now, you may need to incorporate that into this math equation as well). So this would mathematically look like:
 

 

Now time yourself on how long it takes you to open those penny rolls. This includes however long you take breaks while opening rolls whether getting food, giving downtime for your wrists, toilet breaks, etc. Now the math looks like:
 

X = Total time to get pennies + Time to open all penny rolls

 

The next factor is harder to judge: Energy1 and Energy2. Energy1 is how much energy did you use picking up boxes lugging them around (aka how tired does that make you). This is a difficult factor to determine, so make your best guess. It is advised to determine this in the amount of rest time you need after engaging in the activity of picking up the pennies. Energy2 is how much energy do you have left after getting your pennies and opening all of the rolls? Is the rest of your day impacted? Are you able to now do your sorting or have you lost a considerable amount of time because you’ve used up all your energy just picking up and opening penny rolls? One most popular way to calculate Energy2 is that Energy2 = amount of rest time needed prior to getting more pennies, opening more rolls, or sorting pennies. The final equation then looks like:

 

X = Total time to get pennies + Time to open all penny rolls + Energy1 + Energy2

 
 

Opportunity Cost

 

So what does X equal? Now we can determine your opportunity cost. Opportunity cost is the value of best alternative choice in multiple choices when making a decision. We use opportunity cost all day long and never necessarily think about it in terms of breaking down value of choices. Time is valued in terms of money differently for every individual person. This helps make decisions on whether you should continue to pick up penny boxes or buy penny bags from us. Even if you can manage to pick up penny bags from banks, you still have to drive around, which has cost in money, time, and wear on your car. So which is effectively cheaper when weighing the different factors? Only you can decide.

 
 

Conclusions:   Do what makes sense for you and only you. If picking up pennies works for you, do it. If you have the energy to drive around picking up penny boxes or connections to get penny bags from your bank and that works for you, great! If not, consider alternatives. Teamwork is always a great thing and that’s what we strive to do. We want to team up with you to provide you the sealed pennies in bags you need. But only if you want the team effort to work for you. Our recommendation is to do the calculation on opportunity cost every now and then for yourself.

Add whatever other factors in your life to the equation that may pertain to you that we aren’t aware of. And remember, this is an investment. If the maths hows you should pick up locally, do it. If the math shows you should order sealed penny bags from us, do it. After all, maximizing investment return on pennies (read How to Make Money off of Copper Pennies) is the most important factor third to happiness and your health.