scott wrote:
> Did you know, that if you had a ton of old 2 pence pieces (worth 2800 
> pounds), you could melt them down and sell the ton of copper for the 
> going price of 4300 pounds.

Which is why the old pence pieces will be dropping rapidly out of 
circulation, if they haven't started to already.

The old US penny weighs in, I'm told, at 1/159 of a pound, which means 
that when copper sells for more than 1.59 USD, it's time to melt the old 
ones down for sale.

Recent US pennies are made from copper-coated zinc, which is not nearly 
as worthwhile.

The collector value of the old wheat penny (which was no longer minted 
after 1958/1959) is greater than the copper content, so melting them 
down does not make any economic sense.

> Surely something has gone wrong when the things we use to represent the 
> actual money are worth more than the money itself?

Back in the early '80's I saw an East German Mark coin.  It was made of 
aluminum, and thus was just like those cheap toy coins that are often 
given away as promotional items.  At the time the East German Mark was 
worth about one-tenth of the West German Mark, and thus worth about four 
cents in US money.

Regards,
John

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