Why would you melt them down? If they abolish pennies their collector value would probably be much more than 2 cents.
Pennies from the 19th century can be worth several dollars, a few specific ones even several hundred dollars.
Pennies from the 19th century can be worth several dollars, a few specific ones even several hundred dollars.
Even if you had the time to inspect every penny you planned to melt to see if it was worth something meaningful, the return you'd see would likely not even begin to cover the time you'd spent looking through all those pennies. Unless you had a machine (which costs money) a few hundred dollars is unlikely to make the effort profitable.
I used to think bicentennial quarters might be worth more someday. But here we are nearly a half century later and AFAICT a standard (not silver) bicentennial quarter which has been in circulation is still worth pretty much exactly 25 cents. So in real terms, a lot less than in 1976.
I guess the lesson is, if you're going to collect coins as an investment, don't bother unless they're either uncirculated or actually rare.
for reference (spoilers, but the story is from 1954, so...) the outcome of hoarding and destroying [dubious, discuss] all but one 1916 US quarter was to raise the price to one skyrillion [conversation to SI prefix uncertain] dollars, resulting in failure to realise the cash value of said asset. but, pie fight.
We can look at old, pre-Euro money like pfenning. What are the coins from the 90s worth today? I mean, sure, maybe a few extra bucks, but then you have to factor in some leg work of finding collectors who want what you have.
It's not really a worthwhile for most as an investment. The scrap is easy to sell right now.