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The price of metals has been on a roll upwards for most of a year now. You may want to think about cashing in that hoard of pennies for their scrap metal value.

"But Chuck" you say "Everyone knows that pennies aren't made of copper any more. They're mostly zinc."

Very true, but the price of scrap zinc is now sitting around $1.40 per pound (up almost 50% since the start of the year) and shows no sign of stopping. A pound of (modern) pennies has a face value of about $1.81. So it won't be too long before pennies are worth more as scrap metal than their face value.

As far as the copper variety, the scrap value point has long since passed. Copper is going for about $3 per pound; a pound of pre-1982 copper pennies is worth about $1.40 face value.

Steel is cheaper than either zinc or copper and wears very well. I suspect we may yet see steel pennies again like we did in 1943.

BTW, the mandatory tuba content in all of this is that brass is made up of approximately 70 percent copper and 30 percent zinc. So that 25 lb. tuba contains about $52.50 worth of copper and $10.50 worth of zinc, or $63 worth of raw metal.

Many countries are not so picky about getting their money down to the penny. When I lived in Indonesia, they had no currency lower than 100 rupiah. This was back when the exhange rate was US$1.00 = Rp.2,500. That means the lowest money they had was equal to US$.04. But with the exchange rate at Rp.9,000 to one buck, I don't know.

Vietnam is interesting. Coin are issued for amounts equivalent to, roughly, 25 cents to two dollars. Paper money is issued for both large amounts and tiny amounts. The notes for the tiny amounts are physically smaller, too. Today's exchange rate for Vietnam is US$1.00 = 16,000 Dong.

If any of you are planning a trip to Vietnam, here is a warning: When you go to the airport at Saigon to leave the country, there will be vendors who try to do you the favor of helping you unload your excess dong (it's so fun to say! )

They will offer you shirts, shoes, toys, hamburgers, cigarettes, postcards, and some fine Cambodian chocolate because they know you aren't supposed to leave the country with more than about two million dong. Then, you go through immigration (exit visa fee). Next you go through security (security fee). I thought I had it made until my suitcase was 10 kilograms overweight and had to pay US$5.00 per kilo for excess (excess baggage fee). Finally, the airline noticed that I was leaving on the wrong day according to my ticket. Oh, they had room for me, but I had to change my ticket (change of plans fee). It cost me two million dong to leave the Vietnam.





This exaggerated copy of a 500 dong note, worth about three cents US, is the smallest currency used in Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh's smiling face is on every piece of money in the country. Now you know why they still call it Saigon.

[quote="bloke"]Seriously,

I've been staring awfully hard at that c. 7 story (taller...??) ham radio tower (solid aluminum) on my newly-acquired *property.

It comes down easy (with an electric winch that's already in place) and unbolts into transportable sections.

I say grab it, Bloke and I'm sure you know to rig it completely before it goes up.
You can hang all that you desire from a tall one. I would like mine grounded but copper wire to a grounding plate to aluminum makes a battery.

*that's "undisclosed location" to all of you TubeNet metal thieves[/quote]

Dag nabbit!