Ever since we have been married, Jeff has always been interested in something. Buying and selling sports cards, collecting coins and currency, old maps, breeding lizards...there's always something going on. His latest hobby is collecting pennies. But not just any pennies. No, he found out that copper is worth $3.85/lb and pennies before 1982 are 95% copper. His first thought was to try to make some money off of it, buying pennies from the bank, taking out the pre-1982 ones and trying to sell them as scrap copper. He quickly learned that there really is no money in that. Copper isn't worth enough, and since it is illegal to melt US currency, it just wasn't going to be worth it.
BUT, it was still intriguing. Even if he just had some copper lying around, maybe one day the penny will become obsolete and then maybe it will be okay to melt pennies for their metal content. He thought it would be fun to just have some copper. And it would be fun to try to get it.
So he went to the bank and came back with $25 in pennies. He got Damon and me involved, and we started searching through the rolls for the copper pennies. On average, we would find 18 out of 100. He put all the old pennies in a sack and then we were left with a huge pile of post-1982 pennies. So, he found a solution. He found a coin sorting machine and we started the process of bundling those up.
Damon displaying a couple rolls ready to go back to the bank.
Since then, we have done a couple more boxes, with similar results. We have about 14 lbs of copper pennies and the rest have been deposited back in the bank. It makes me laugh just thinking about it. But I also love how excited Damon has been during the whole process, so it definitely hasn't been a waste of time or money. Even McKay got in on the action, although he was kept far away from the actual coins.
We have been married long enough now that I have just accepted that Jeff will always have some new hobby. At least this one hasn't ended up in injury! And there are SO many things he could be doing with his free time that would be a waste of time and money. So I support him. And I love him.
I took this picture one night when he was playing the piano. I love how the light is just perfect. It may be my favorite pic of him ever. I'm a lucky girl. And if the penny can ever be melted down, I may just one day be a rich girl...
1 comment:
The pic of your hubby playing the piano reminds me of riding on the buss after some sport (v-ball?) and listening to Jim Brickman and all of us saying/thinking, "I want to marry someone who will play the piano while we rock our babies to sleep". At least one of us got 'the one' who can do just that! ... of course I enjoyed the hobby post as well, but the picture just left me with a thought I needed to pass back to you.
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