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When you give your two cents' worth these days, you should charge for three.

The spot price of copper was $2.23 per pound on the New York Mercantile Exchange Friday, and at that rate, a penny is worth 1.45 cents.

But before you commence scouring the nether regions of couches and car seats, be aware that there are some major catches to a get-rich scheme based on this news.

The first one is that the price applies only to pennies minted before 1982, which are 95 percent copper. Pennies minted since then are just 2.5 percent copper.

The second caveat is that it's highly unlikely you'll find a willing smelter. Asarco's Hayden Smelter is not open to penny melters, nor is Phelps Dodge's smelter in Miami.

"My assumption is that even if you did find a smelter willing to do so that you would have to have an awful lot of pennies to make it worth the fees to melt them," said Ben Weinstein, manager of Old Pueblo Coin Exchange, 4420 E. Speedway.

At times when the price of a commodity outpaces the value of its requisite coin, it's more common to simply trade the commodity in its current state, Weinstein said.

"If copper stays higher, pennies could just be traded for their intrinsic value, similar to old U.S. silver coins that will trade back and forth for their silver content (not their stated value), but aren't smelted or assayed," he said.

If you really want to clean up on pennies, narrow your search to those dating to 1943. That year, the mint made pennies out of zinc-coated steel, but a very small number were copper-alloy that were probably struck by accident because a small number of copper 1-cent blanks remained in the press hopper when production began on the steel pennies.

These accidentally copper cents — about 40 are known to remain in existence — are the El Dorado of pennies. In 1996, one sold for $82,500, according to the American Numismatic Association.

Due to their astronomical value, 1943 copper cents have been faked by coating steel cents with copper. The easiest way to get at the truth is with a magnet. If the penny sticks to the magnet, it's not copper.