There;'s always Stripperella’s nemesis Cheapo
I just sorted through fifty random cents. Seven were pre-'82. If my sample is somewhat representative of what I get in change, that means about 14% of the cents out there are copper (bronze, really). Is 14% incredibly rare?
It’s literally just copper plating. As dumb-ass high school students, we’d grab pennies in the tongs and heat them in the bunsen burners until the zinc liquefied, and then pop them onto someone’s chemistry book, setting it afire in several places where the molten zinc would splatter.
All that would be left behind would be a little crumpled copper foil penny shell- like maybe a quinoa grain worth of copper all total.
When the price of silver peaked in the 70’s, it became illegal in Canada to melt down the silver coins (earlier dimes and quarters.) So the enterprising types tried exporting them to the USA where it was legal, so exporting in bulk became illegal. There was a news story about some fellow who hid large bags of silver coins inside the engine compartment, by the radiator. The fan must have damaged the bags, because he left a trail of silver coins across the bridge into the USA, where Niagara Falls CBP turned him back to be arrested by the Canadians - while leaving a return trail of silver coins.
An alternative is to simply discontinue the use of the penny, as Canada has done the last few years. Supposedly American politicians don’t think the public will like this, but in general, nobody in Canada seems to be bothered much about it. Ditto the disappearing $1 paper and $2 paper. And the conversion to plastic bills for $5 and above.
But the problem, as alluded to above, is - where will you get a decent amount of source material? The logistics of acquiring pennies by the ton, or any other coin, seems daunting. Plus - sooner or later the local banks may catch on and report you for investigation, even if there’s no specific law about reporting. I would say, it helps to have a coin source like a vending machine company - but how many vending machines take in a decent quantity of nickels, and none I’m aware of take in pennies. You’re better off with a large series of wishing well franchises, like the ladies I read about once who had the franchise to empty the Trevi Fountain in Rome. (The closest we came to that was when my wife managed a McDonalds severald ecades ago, and she volunteered me and her to clean the donation box mess. Our money-laundering operation produced about $150 in pennies every few months and $200 in larger coins, once we go rid of the mixed in gum, dead insects trapped in the driver-thru donation box, trash paper, etc.)
Must be a resurgence. When I quit they were down to one or two a roll (50 coins). Some of them had none.
I would be perfectly happy to see the US $1 bill go away and just settle on the $1 coin. Unfortunately, the company which is the sole supplier of the paper for US bills has many friends in Congress who wouldn’t want to see them lose that business.
Similarly, the company that has the contract to provide zinc blanks to the US MInt campaigned to keep the penny. They even started an astroturf organization and found a number of older people quite willing to run it. Googling, I found the name of the company is Jarden Zinc and the organization is Americans for Common Cents.