Escrapping - My new hobby

Penny smelting makes the big bucks.

However you do know post 1982 (I think around here) pennies are only like 2% copper and the rest cheap zinc... The switch was made because of the cost of copper.

 

Yep. You are correct. There are actually some 1982s that are copper and some that are zinc so to avoid pesky weighing we just do 1981 and prior. We currently have somwhere around 100,000 copper pennies combined, which equals to about $1000 profit if we double our money. This seems like nothing, but keep in mind we haven't hand searched anything, just bought pennies for about 1.3cents ea from other people who search them in bulk with machines. Plus, the return on investment is 100%, because we only invested $1000 total. We aren't really doing it for the big bucks, we just think its a little fun thing to have some money tied into.

 

Hmm I guess. doesn't sound real appealing to me to be buying US currency @ 1.3 face value but....

I'd rather put the 1000$ into halves again and again looking for silver ones. No risk . You can do it unlimited times

 

I used to love coin roll hunting a few years ago. Even if i was broke and couldn't buy roles of halves, quarters, or dimes for silver, I'd spend $10 on 1000 pennies and look for wheat pennies xD

 

Bump. sold everything. want to discuss methods again

 

Did you make a profit?

 

I doubt that stuff is worth more then $20.

 

First genuinely interesting thread I've read in a while. Keep us updated with more of your finds! Closest I've gotten to this is buying computers at garage sales well below what they're worth.

 

Thanks for the support. I've been bouncing around alot of unorthodox fun moneymaking methods for the past few years, it's pretty fun.

You'd be suprised at what it's actually worth, a fair amount of precious material goes into computer manuf. The prices on this site http://boardsort.com/payout.php are fairly accurate, but it can be tough to do if you don't live by a scrap yard/ have a large volume because shipping is expensive.

Well, the total payout was like 221 if I remeber correctly, I picked everything up using my parents car for free (living@home), and valuing my time at 0$ p/h , I'd say I did ok.

 

escrapping? sounds like you're becoming a hoarder.. please don't... just recycle and keep your house tidy clean....

 

Hoarding is usually of things that have little to no value. These scrap pieces can be very valuable and take up little space and is worth it since he picks up the scrap and pays nothing.

 

That's pretty good actually. I have like 20 desktop HDs I'm going to sell eventually.

 

Not sure if you mean for scrap, but always check if it has some resale value not for scrap, as this will always be much higher than the scrap value

 

Picking up some computer parts to scrap/sell doesn't make you a hoarder or suggest that his house isn't clean.

 

This actually sounds really profitable and a good idea! I might start doing this

 

They're scrap most of them are broken and they're really old.

 

This.

Sometimes even if something isn't working, somebody will pay a little bit more money to use it for parts or rebuild it rather than scrapping it. Scrapping should always be a last resort if there are no other buyers since it is the bare minimum amount of money you are going to get for the scrap.

 

This is just an idea, but you could try to start an Ebay shop selling all of the different parts piece by piece or in bulk. It might be something to look into.

 

My ex co-worker told me about this. He's been doing this scrapping for like 3 years now. The best part for him is that his grandmother works in the city dumpings. He gets all of his stuff from there, takes it back home and just gets it done. A 24 year old fellow driving a new sirocco... And everything is from that junk.

 

Yeah full time scrappers in good areas w/ a good truck who hustle can make a fair amount, this doesn't surprise me at all.

That's a cool granny

Yeah, ebay has long been a trading post for items such as this. It can also be useful to gauge the actual prices of items, because unlike a list you can be sure on the amount paid for the goods.