When you are going to buy #COPPER or #SILVER or #GOLD or #NICKEL as an investment you really need to know what measurement you are dealing with.
This is really not that complicated but in the field of the internet you will quickly find, among sellers especially that their is. bit of misleading. Could be intentional or it very well could be that those selling are just as public school limited as the buyers.
Anyway:
Precious metals, #Gold, #Silver, #Platinum, #Palladium, #Rhodium
These metals are weighed and measured if you will according to the standard of what is called a TROY ounce.
To give that a standard in something easily understood we will look at grams.
One #Troy ounce is the equivalent of 31.1034768 grams and their are 12 Troy ounces in one Troy pound or 373.2417216 grams.
When buying or selling small amounts generally these numbers are simply rounded DOWN to a Troy ounce being 31.1 grams with a few sellers rounding up t 31.11 to give themselves an advantage.
A discussion of exactly what a gram is and is way to complicated, but if you want to stretch your brain a little with Planck constant have fun:
"In 1960, the new International System of Units defined a gram as one thousandth of a kilogram (i.e., one gram is 1×10−3 kg). The kilogram, as of 2019, is defined by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures from the fixed numerical value of the Planck constant (h), which is 6.62607015×10−34 kg⋅m2⋅s−1"
But for dealing with folks at the flea market or the COMEX and for the volumes and purities that most of will come into contact with you generally will not have to deal with such mental floss.
I DigressWhen you are buying BULLION coins or bars you are hopefully buying pure ( as close as possible) precious metals such as GOLD and SILVER. the reference in the financial world is more to precious metals and is generally understood as an official purity for lawful money. The idea of BASE METALS such as COPPER or ZINC being referred to as bullion seems to be a fairly new marketing ploy.
Anyway ( I digress again)Bullion: bul·lion
/ˈbo͝olyən/
Learn to pronounce
Origin
Middle English: from Anglo-Norman French, in the sense ‘a mint’, variant of Old French bouillon, based on Latin bulliun ‘to boil’.
(Another digression)
The OTHER Ounce
THE Unpronounceable Ounce of the avoirdupois system, which basically weighs everything else including Copper, Zinc, Wheat, Corn, etc. and consists of 16 of these types of ounces to one pound.
In other words their are 437.5 GRAINS in one AVOIRDUPOIS Once and their are 480 Grains in ONE TROY ounce
SO to be a little over complicated: one pound weighs 453.59237 grams or exactly 7000 grains, and a pound in the #AVOIRDUPOIS system an ounce is 1/16th of a pound or 437.5 grains, when you are measuring #TROY ounces you are dealing with ounces that weigh 480 grains or 1/12th of a Pound.
So a TROY pound is 12 Troy ounces
An AVP pound consists of 16 AVP ounces
AS WIKI puts it a AV ounce equal to 1/16 pound (437 1/2 grains), and in the troy and apothecaries' systems, equal to 480 grains, or 1/12 pound. The avoirdupois ounce is equal to 28.35 grams
Blah Blah Blah
When you are on a site that is selling you copper or nickel or any other base metal as a "bullion" investment , remember to ask what kind of ounces they are talking about and what kind of pound. This goes true for those online selling junk silver or scrap silver as well . There are a host of sellers on EBAY or CRAIGS LIST selling scrap by the pound but with no reference to what sort of pound.
ASK for the weight in grams to settle the issue and if they bring up Penny weight just look the other way your most likely in a pawn shop fixing to get taken to the cleaners on a "we buy gold scam". Isn't it interesting that when we buy Gold and silver at the pawn shop they talk ounces and grams but when they are trying to give you a great price for your Gold and silver trinkets they talk penny weight and almost completely disregard the gems and stone in the settings?
ANYWAY if you must know: A pennyweight is a unit of mass equal to 24 grains, 1⁄20 of a troy ounce, 1⁄240 of a troy pound, approximately 0.054857 avoirdupois ounce and exactly 1.55517384 grams. It is abbreviated dwt, d standing for denarius.
So divide a Troy ounce by 20 for a mental gymnastics but stick to GRAMS for all your dealings!
Always insist on the weight in GRAMS to avoid all confusion and buy your own scale that will weigh in GRAMS or GRAINS, we are not talking about a postal scale or your kitchen scale for flour.
IF you are looking at the internet for a copper purchase through Ebay or some other entity posing as a great investment opportunity because the price of copper is high and they are wanting to sell you a 1 pound scoop of pennies ( un --searched ROLL EYES) you should know if your getting 16 ounces or 12 and what sort of ounces they are and ASKING FOR GRAMS is the best way to get through either fraud or their general ignorance of the various divisions of weights and measures.
You will also discover that buying COPPER by the ounce as BULLION is a complete waste of your hard earned Federal Reserve Units.
Paying upwards of 1000% above the value of the copper is just foolish and folks are doing it in droves everyday, ( look at the number of SOLD units above) and company after company is selling this hype and reaping the profits. COPPER BARS and ROUNDS are simply a foolish bet unless your paying like 29-34 cents each for them per ounce.
When copper is at $4.6505 and you get out your calculator and divide that price by 16 and your staring at a $2.75 round or 4$ ingot you should be able to say to yourself that paying over 80 dollars a pound on Ebay or 40 Dollars per pound on JM Bullion is just flat out foolish no matter what type of ounces you are referring to.
EVEN at the Cheapest rates you can commercially get from folks like JM BULLION your looking at 10 times more than the actual value of the metal involved.
If your looking at these items as a toy or a gift make sure you explain to the recipient that this is not an investment and that short of the the End of the world type night of the living dead thing these will always be just toys.
NOW on to pennies: Ebay can still be a great place with careful observation for one to find very good deals on copper pennies, even getting them at less than face value at times. Please look at the following listing for $75 dollars Face value for some copper pennies with free shipping.
73 Dollars worth of pennies sold for 152.50 dollars with free shipping.
Lesson, DO NOT SELL ANYTHING ON EBAY at AUCTION unless your item is very scarce and you have done your homework. That is exactly what this fellow did and unless he found these pennies for free he lost money big time.
There are 47.549 pounds of copper and 2.5026 pounds of zinc in $73 face value of copper pennies, or about 225 dollars worth of base metal. So this enterprising individual way less then doubles his face value amount, ( because he offered free shipping) Then EBAY took their share and I am sure he was still happy, given Copper was somewhat less back in January, however he only made around $43 Dollars give or take when he could have made a LOT more with the right listing parameters.
The guy who bought the item is happy but could but could possibly have done better depending if he is in a state that charges sales taxes.
Enjoy..