It's too late/early to actually do the math on this, but according to this site, zinc's current price at $1.80/lb (of raw material) means that each penny is actually worth $0.0101867, which means you get about $0.19 in "profit" per 1000 pennies you melt down for the raw materials.

I wonder what the impact coins being denominated in certain metals has on the price of the metal. Would anybody actually melt down coins to make the profit? What if zinc were $3/lb, would that provide enough financial incentive? I imagine the amount of zinc mined far outstrips the amount of zinc you could get from melting down pennies ... but ... i really hate pennies and i'm trying to find a way to subtly hatch my plan to melt down all pennies...