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Gold/Mining/Energy : Gold Price Monitor -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: grusum who wrote (91376)	11/23/2002 7:03:11 PM
From: E. Charters	Respond to of 116895

The inflation index since 1967 is 5.30. Copper was selling for 1.50 a pound then. So it should be 7.96 today! But it's maybe $0.697 US or 1.06 CDN. It will be a long time before a penny exceeds a dollar. Currently there is a curious inflation index. Cost of living is high and getting slowly higher, but there is no interest rate. What is really happening is a capital and industrial erosion and cash squeeze. At 3.0 percent inflation for 20 years (unlikely) the dollar only erodes to 55 cents of purchasing power. If copper double in that time in worth in real terms (outside inflation's effect), then it will be worth $2.53 including inflation. A penny will be worth 2.53 cents. So how much does a penny weigh? There are about 125 to the pound by my estimation. Maybe 140. Right now a copper penny is worth 106/125 or .85 cents by weight. At 3 percent inflation it will be worth one cent in 5.5 years. In fact the prices quoted on copper are low. The usual price you see quoted is copper in concetrate by the ton. Prices of manufactured copper items is far higher. Copper tube is not 69 cents a pound new no matter what they pay for scrap copper. Check it out. A few years ago I price a pound of copper rivets in a hardware store. Fifty dollars. No lie. They are very pure soft copper that anneals cold and does not split. Expensive as hell. Add some tin and you have bronze and bronze ain't cheap. eC<:-}

To: grusum who wrote (91376)	11/23/2002 7:15:21 PM
From: E. Charters	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116895

The Canadian penny is 98% copper and weighs 3.24 grams so there are 140 of them to the pound. After 1982 the US cent is mostly zinc and is perhaps 2.5 grams so it will never be worth very much except as a collectors item. A "proof" quality CDN penny in the modern series is worth anywhere from 50 cents to 40 dollars depending on rarity. A collection or pennies from 1901 to present day in mint condition is very very valuable. Mint is a hard condition to find. EC<:-}

To: grusum who wrote (91376)	11/23/2002 9:44:33 PM
From: E. Charters	Respond to of 116895

Made a mistook. (been a while) Copper price was not 1.50 in 1967. It peaked in 1970 at 64 cents which is worth about 2.68 in 1998 dollars. High levels in copper price prevailed from 1901 to 1916, when it peaked at $9360.00 a ton in 1998 dollars. 1956 and 1970 where commensurate peaks, again measured in 1998 dollars at around 5350 dollars a ton or thereabouts. The 1998 dollar measure in part is measuring the degree of inflation, but not wholly. Demand is also a large part as inflation did not peak until 1920 after the war. As would be expected, the copper low was 1932 at about 1500 1998-dollars per ton. EC<:-}