but how does one melt pennies and how would they find out? just curious.
2007-02-08 01:52:46 · 15 answers · asked by ? 4 in Politics & Government ➔ Government
You would have to melt down some really old pennies to get copper.
Today's pennies are zinc with a copper skin. Very little copper in them. However, I had read that the price of zinc had gone up and that it was close to passing the point where melting pennies for zine would be profitable.
Melting zinc pennies is easy. I used to do it with a big magnifying glass I used to have. A good charcoal fueled forge can easily do the job. Zinc has a lower melting point than copper. Zinc melts at about 787 degrees fahrenheit and copper melts at 1083 degrees fahrenheit.
Melting down pure copper pennies is harder. You need more heat. You may be able to do it with the charcoal forge but you would need a constant airflow thru it.
How would you get caught? Well, to be truly profitable, you would need to melt down a lot of pennies. You would be going to the bank and getting hundreds of dollars of pennies at a time. That would get someone's attention.
Also, it might get the attention of people at the scrap yard (or wherever you sell the stuff) if you keep bringing in the homemade ingots of zine or copper. That is not something they normally see. However, a lot of these places usually keep the questions to a minimum because a lot of stolen metal passes thru them anyway.
2007-02-08 02:00:46 · answer #1 · answered by A.Mercer 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
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2016-05-21 14:35:09 · answer #2 · answered by ? 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Pennies are no longer made of copper, just a copper shell. This happened around 1982 and also unless you have an actelyn torch you can't melt em down.
2007-02-08 01:57:24 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
A.) It is always illegal to deface money. Does that mean you'll ever be prosecuted for putting change on the railroad track? Probably not :)
B.) Nevertheless, money gets destroy (either willfully or accidentally). The reason it is illegal is that it gives the treasury a skewed view of how much currency is out there. So, based upon trends and data, they print more money. If they guess badly, releasing additional new money will deflate the currency, thus making all goods in the US increase in price. The treasury DOES have the ability to destroy money and replace it with new currency, which they often do (that's why Banks have more new money than anyone else - if you ever rip a dollar in two, or something like that, your bank should be able to exchange it for a fresh, new one.
2007-02-08 02:00:50 · answer #4 · answered by Rob 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
You would need to find older pennies as the newer ones are no longer made of copper.
To melt coins you need to have adequate heat.
You can find a lot on the internet - look under melting or smelting
copper
2007-02-08 01:59:59 · answer #5 · answered by sagegranny 4 · 2⤊ 0⤋
It's called defacing American currency. Besides, the pennies of today are just copper clad aluminum and worthless. The old pennies are the all copper ones. they started doing this around 1908-1982.
2007-02-08 02:11:16 · answer #6 · answered by bamafannfl 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
in school we used bunson burners and tweezers to mlt the copper off of the zinc on the inside. and after 2 minutes the copper just dropped of and the zinc was left.
2007-02-08 01:56:14 · answer #7 · answered by segarsjim 1 · 1⤊ 0⤋
First of all i may be stupid, but what shortage are you speaking about? Second I suppose they would melt them down like they would do iron or anyother metal smelt them in a factory!!
2007-02-08 02:01:55 · answer #8 · answered by peachiepie 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
it's always been illegal to melt down pennies. or destroy any currency. also: fun fact, pennies are the only american coin whose metal content is more valuable than the actual coin.
2007-02-08 01:56:50 · answer #9 · answered by grasshopper 3 · 3⤊ 0⤋
Grow Your Penis Fast
2016-06-28 11:20:20 · answer #10 · answered by Laurence 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋