Nickels are now 102% of their face value

Several months, I read in a financial magazine some Wall St hotshot who made a ton of money because of the market crash five years ago had ordered a pallet load of nickels from the mint.

 

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Hmm. A 5x8 shipping pallet can hold 2500 kg. So allowing for a bit of contingency, 2450 kg of nickels = 490,000 nickels. This is $24,500 face value. So let's make this an even $25,000 cost when trucking costs are added in. So if he sold the nickels for 6 cents each, he made the grand sum of $4,400.

It hardly seems like a good way to make money.

 

I believe he's looking well into the future not selling them for 6¢ each.

 

Quote I was responding to said the money had already been made.

However, I don't see the where it makes much sense to indefinitely hold 490,000 nickels on a 5x8 pallet either in hopes of future metal appreciation.

 

unless it is a 2009. keep all of those you may run across!

 

Your best bet is probably eBay, but be sure to check all the listings as some of the prices are high. Also I guess they stopped being 99.9% nickel after 1981 so you can't just swap for them at the bank like you can in the US. So those have more of a premium and may not be a better investment. I just like them for base metal.

 

Lol. Oh Ben! Can you chime in ?
paging Mr. bernake , paging Mr. Bernanke....

 

I do save those too. Forgot to mention it.

 

Actually, I believe it was $2,000,000 in nickels that the guy purchased. It's a story from The Big Short by Michael Lewis.

So, you'll need to revise those numbers.

 

Hmm, not really. If you use the calculation that I made above, this would require 80 5x8 shipping pallets. So you would need to rent a facility that could not only hold 3200 sq ft of pallets but which could also hold the weight of 2192 short tons of weight. I'm thinking the storage costs and rental space would eat up all the marginal profits that you might make on this endeavor.

I'm going to put this one in the urban legend category.

 

shipping pallets I have seen are appx 4'x4'.

 

I used a standard 1/2 shipping pallet used in containerized shipping. What you are referring to is a warehouse pallet. For the most part going to this size pallet will increase the total space that you will need for the nickels under discussion because they don't hold as much weight.

 

It would help if we can find out what size pallet the mint uses for a "pallet load of nickels" unless you know what size they use.

 

I don't know. However I don't think it changes the math at all. It's a pretty simple calculation to determine the weight of $2,000,000 face of nickels. From there you can divide it up by any standard pallet size. The specifications can be looked up on google.

 

Urban legend????? He bought 20,000,000 nickels.
I get dizzy attempting reading your posts. I don't understand where your figures come from.

 

http://www.cnbc.com/id/44788851/Kyle_Bass_s_Nickel_Collection


http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/blog/20-million-nickels


http://inpursuitofvalue.wordpress.com/2011/11/18/why-kyle-bass-hoard-nickels/


ad nauseum

 

This was posted prior to my post:

This is exactly what I said. BTW, this amount would be 40,000,000 nickels. I didn't read your links. If there is no explanation on why they are relevant to the topic, I never bother with them.

 

You might find it helpful to take a basic reading comprehension course.

 

haha, midas1-
Why not a 2-for-1, incl/ "Manners 100"? Only $19.95
http://www.mannersinternational.com/store/item_view.asp?estore_itemid=1000014

Lost cause, unfortunately.

 

This was a totally unnecessary comment.