It's illegal to melt Pennies, so their value is stuck at "face" period. End of story.
Didn't read through the entire thread so this may have been commented on, but this is 100% wrong. It is illegal to alter a coin in an attempt to commit a fraud, like altering a nickel to try and pass it off as a quarter or cutting chunks out of 100 coins to make a new one. Melting a coin down for it's raw materials is committing no fraud so the Title you are referring to does not apply. People have been melting down silver quarters/dollars and copper pennies for as long as it's been profitable, no legal action has come of it.
That is correct! That is why it's profitable to pay double for a penny off eBay, melt the cents, and combine the copper with other scrap. The only concerns that the local scrapper has is if the copper is of the proper quality and that it wasn't stolen.
Too bad there's a massive paper trail leading to the the purchaser of tons of pennies, yet would have no inventory to show an investigator, let alone a sales slip if sold for profit but not disclosed on any tax forms.
Apologies for the aside. If further comment is warranted, please start a new thread quoting these two posts.