So enough copper to equal the value of one troy ounce of gold would weigh about 626 pounds, or 284 kilograms.

(Back in the real world, base-metal prices have been dribbling downward along with everything else. As I write this, the spot price for copper's been down around $US1.50 a pound for some months.)

(This also means that there's nobody making sure that the metal on sale even is 99.9%-pure copper, not that that's a particularly rare substance anyway. Who's ever going to check?)

2: There is nothing special about the copper the eBay sellers are offering that makes it worth anything like whay they charge. Three-nines copper is widely available on the industrial market, sold by the pound or even tonne.

As I write this, copper "bullion" has been selling on eBay for around forty Australian dollars for five tiny one-ounce bars; that's about $US26.60, right now. The current spot price for copper is less than two US dollars per pound. So even if you have to pay nine dollars a pound to get three-nines copper in relatively small lots from a metals dealer, the eBay price is still about 8.5 times what the metal is actually worth.

If the bullion bars cost nine bucks a pound then that price could, as you say, arguably be justified. But the eBay dealers are actually charging well over a hundred US dollars a pound.

There is no realistic prospect that the price of copper will increase enough for a purchase at this price to be considered an "investment" in even the next decade, and exactly the same substance can currently be purchased much more cheaply, as you yourself say, from normal metals dealers.

Polishing and stamping copper does not make it worth 8.5 times as much. Neither does the US government's jargon term for copper to be used to make coins have any impact on the value of even that copper, which eBay-bought copper isn't anyway.

3: Yes, people should be free to buy whatever they like on eBay, or anywhere else, for whatever price they're willing to pay. If, however, they're buying an "investment" which is less likely to turn a profit than a similar amount invested in lottery tickets, I see no reason why I shouldn't be allowed to point this fact out.

If you want to invest in copper, go to a metals dealer and buy a slab of 0.999 copper you can barely lift for a couple of hundred bucks. Or, to avoid the hernia risk and get something you can easily sell, just buy shares in a copper exchange-traded fund.

Nobody who knows about these options, and their far lower price, could possibly want to buy the "bullion" bars instead. It's like buying a 15-year-old Toyota Corolla for $50,000. I think that's a pretty good definition of a scam, since you ask; anybody who discovers the truth after buying some of the "bullion" would be entirely justified in feeling that they'd been ripped off.

The only way anybody will be able to unload "copper bullion" bars at anything like these outrageous purchase prices is by finding a greater fool. The market for Magic: The Gathering cards or Beanie Babies is orders of magnitude more liquid than the "copper bullion" market.

I now consider this matter closed, Mary. You've made your case, such as it is, and I've taken far too much time out of my day replying to you. I will delete any further comments from you which merely reiterate your commitment to the Objectivist approach to consumer protection.

If someone wishes to pay to have someone cut, shape, mark and polish a piece of pure copper for them, so it resembles a bullion bar, how is that a scam????

Are they selling 99.9% pure copper? Of course!! They wouldn’t be selling for long on eBay if they weren’t. If it was something other than pure copper and they claimed it was, that would be a “scam”.

Is it a good investment? I don’t know. I guess only time will tell, as with any “investment”. Is it a “scam” to for them to suggest it is? No, because all investments are based on “speculation”.

Is it correct to call it bullion? Maybe, maybe not. Is it a scam to do so? I think not.
In fact, the U.S. government declared pure copper as legal bullion by an act of congress. So I’m pretty sure that the U.S. Government has been informed that pure copper is indeed “bullion”.
http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/bullion

True, cathodes are quite pure enough, BUT, I checked with the sellers you suggested, where you can buy 200 Lb. cathodes at spot price. You can. But the catch is, you must order a minimum of 500 metric tons at roughly $6,000 per ton. That is over $3 million dollars worth of copper, not including what it would cost to ship that amount of material from Africa or South America which is where these companies are located. It is the manufacturing of the cathode into a product that makes up the difference in “spot price” over “refined price”, not necessarily the refining.

In fact, by my calculations of what you can buy the refined product for and what the sellers on eBay are selling it for, I’m not seeing a “scam” or even a large markup. It appears to me they are charging reasonable prices for their services to finish the product into a “bullion bar”. That’s it! Not some huge markup like you are claiming. Just simple business dynamics.

The point I am trying to make here is that an ordinary individual CANNOT PURCHASE 99.9% PURE REFINED COPPER FOR “SPOT PRICE”! Therefore, there is NO “scam”!!! Do the research and find out for yourself. That’s what I did.

If your argument depends on someone on about.com who reckons you can call coin-copper alloys "bullion", I really must insist that this does not change the accepted definition of the word, which covers precious metals only. I suppose that in the minting business "bullion" may be a jargon term that applies to any input metal, even steel or zinc, but in the investment world, which is what everybody but you is talking about here, even nine whole dollars a pound doesn't make copper a "precious metal".

The exact argument you're using could be used to argue for "bullion" versions of any other metal, or nonmetal for that matter. Just because it is possible to buy a high-purity substance that costs more than the bulk-traded substance does not mean that copper, lead, iron, zinc, uranium, silicon or hydrogen are in any meaningful way "bullion".

And since you seem to agree with me that everybody who's actually selling "copper bullion" is a scam artist, I don't know why you're belabouring this tiny corner of the definition.

Industrial grade copper comes in many forms and grades. Few of which would qualify to actually be called bullion by this definition. But, there are two.
1. C11000 ETP copper. 99.9% pure. Basically used for electric buss bar applications and available in bar form.
2.C10100 Oxygen free copper. 99.99% Pure. Same basic uses as C11000 but has higher conductivity as is used in specialized applications.
Just for the hell of it I contacted a couple industrial suppliers and requested a quote.
I asked for a quote for a piece of C11000 copper buss bar, 2" X 2" square and 12" long. A piece this size would weigh approx. 16 lbs. and be very similar in size and shape to some of the bullion seen offered for sale on eBay.
The first place quoted me a price of $8.76 per lb. The second $8.62 per lb. One was located in Houston, Tx. and the other in Decatur , Tn. It seems this price is fairly consistant nationwide. That was today, and like you said, the metals market has taken a beating lately. Precious and base metals alike. What would the price per Lb. have been 2 months ago?
Its like I said, the published price per lb. quoted on such sites as Kitco.com is the best "scrap price". Scrap , by anyones definition, consists of old pipes, wiring, electric motors etc. Scrap copper is leftover unrefined copper that varies in purity that CAN be refined to pure .999 copper.
Copper refing is very costly and hence the difference in price.
Even the copper cathodes you refered to on the LME must be further processed into a usable product. Again, very costly.
Only a copper producing mill would have the resources necessary to process such cathodes into a usable form. So basically, the LME price doesn't mean diddly squat to your average consumer.
So you see Dan, there is no big scam. It is simply impossible to buy pure, bullion quality copper for spot price. In any form. Thats my point!!!!!
Some experts beleive, that at the present consumption rate, world supplies of copper will be depleted within 60 years.
Investors beleive copper will reach precious metal status long before the copper runs out, driving the price through the roof. This may or may not be true. It is merely speculation. But thats what investing is all about, isn't it? Any of this info is available on the web if you look.

You know maybe you should stash a few hundred pounds away for a rainy day. You never know, you or children might just thank me.

Yes, there are different grades of copper. Blister copper fresh out of the smelter is about 98% pure, but everyday refined industrial copper is often 99.95% or better. But the stuff being traded by the pound, if not the ton, is at the very worst not far from that quality.

As I write this, the London Metal Exchange Copper Grade A contract is worth about $US4420 per tonne. At 2204.6 pounds per tonne, that's only two bucks a pound. (Base metal prices have taken a bit of a hammering since I first wrote this post.)

The LME Contract Specification page tells you that these contracts are for "cathodes", which should clue you in to the fact that it's not mere blister copper - but don't worry, there's a handy-dandy Chemical Composition PDF right there on that same page that'll give you the precise details.

And I quote: "Sum of elements listed in this table other than copper: 0.0065 max."

So mainstream by-the-ton market copper is already at least 0.9935 pure. Most of it will actually be a little better, right up to the 99.95% industrial standard.

Just showing us a place that tracks the value of by-the-ounce copper would, Mary, be a good start for you. Every metals exchange in the world has copper, but it's always right there in the Base Metals section, priced by the pound or ton.

To aid you in your research, here's a heavy industrial supplier that'll cheerfully sell you a three-tonne coil of 99.99%-pure copper rod. E-mail 'em for a quote, or hunt through the numerous similar dealers to find one that lists prices online - tell us if you find anybody using the word "bullion" with a straight face - and then try to figure out why that copper costs so little more than the per-pound metals-exhange price, when it's an order of magnitude purer than three-nines gold.

If you post any more comments that're just abuse, I'll delete them. Name your sources, or shut the hell up.

You assume that I sell metal. I don't. You assume I think the per lb. spot price should be the per troy ounce price. I don't.
The one thing you assumed that IS correct is that the pure copper you get from a metals dealer is the same as the bullion bars you can buy on eBay. It is! First thing you got right all day.
As far as it being bullion is concerned, well, bullion is bullion. Whether it be gold, silver , platinum, or yes, even copper.
The information I offered is just the facts. Quoted from very reliable sources. Not just the rantings of an ignorant asshole!!!!

There she is, one of the select few with the insight to realise that the per-pound spot price for copper should actually be the per-troy-ounce price, but she was still willing to take a moment out of her busy day of selling metal for 15 times what she paid for it to call me an idiot.

My hat's off to you, Mary415! What a humanitarian! (Have you told the US government about this amazing discovery? I think they could use the cash.)

All the rest of us were sitting here thinking that the metallurgically-pure copper that anybody can buy from an everyday metals merchant or seller of electrical cable was just as good as the blessed-by-a-genuine-licensed-eBay-dealer "bullion" bars. But Mary is ready to correct us.

That's right, people - just because mass-spectrometer analysis can't find one per cent of impurities in a slab of copper is no reason to suppose that it's "bullion". The way you actually tell the difference is very simple:

If you buy it cheaply, it's junk.

If you pay ten to twenty times the spot price for it, it's bullion.

That's all you need to know!

Regrettably, until some dude on eBay polishes it up and whacks it with a stamp, no copper qualifies as Mary415-Approved Copper Bullion.

But I'm given to understand that this level of official certification is fairly easy to achieve.