,,..,,...AND that's just for the melt value of the nickel in them, the 3.75 grams of copper is gravy free-of-charge. Based $100,000 a ton nickel, comes out to over 11 cents per coin. Meanwhile, trading in London has been suspended until Friday. Apparently, by Friday amnesia will have set-in among all the market participants and they will have forgotten why they ran the price up so high earlier in the week followed by dumping all of their long positions precipitating a huge drop in prices. Maybe if they suspend trading in gasoline until Friday it too will drop a couple bucks a gallon. I mean hey! Why Not? It's worth a try isn't it?? https://www.mining.com/lme-cancels-nickel-trading-after-price-soars-past-100000-a-tonne/
It's still illegal to melt pennies and nickels in the United States. This was originally a temporary regulation which came into effect in 2007 for 5 months, but the legislation remains until present time. Additionally, it is illegal to carry more than five dollars worth of pennies and nickels outside of the United States when travelling. But at the same time, you can melt Canadian cents and nickels in the US, just not in Canada.
Yeah but who cares? For decades it was illegal to melt 90% US silver coins, but people still bought and sold them as silver bullion. I would think the same could happen with cents and nickels. The problem for me is space. I simply do not have the space to make put any kind of real money in it. That is what really separates precious metals from base metals, ability to store considerable sums of money in a relatively small space. Even a couple of safes full do not add up to much money. Heck, I don't really buy silver anymore due to space concerns, it just simply does not add up to enough money for the space it takes up.
Nickel spiked 250% yesterday. They had to halt trading. A Chinese billionaire who was caught short lost billions when the margin calls came in. Silver short squeeze next please
But the actual value of a US 5 cent on a scrap metals market is not there due them being a cupro-nickel alloy. I wouldn't bother with hoarding US 5 cent coins, but do bother with the pure Nickel Canada 5 cent coins (1922-1981), plus all other pure nickel world coins I can get for as cheap as possible (ie Dutch 1 guldens, Swiss 20 rappens, French 1 francs, etc.) Just in case.
I wouldn't think hoarding nickels would be a profitable endeavor for all the reasons described. However, it's hard to believe it won't force the US Mint to change alloys sooner rather than later, or to eliminate the denomination altogether, something that should have happened 15 years ago.
I could live with a 10 cent, 25 cent, 1 dollar, 2 dollar and 5 dollar coins. This doesn't mean we can't still conduct commerce digitally down to the $0.01, but cash transactions don't have to be burdened with the hassle of small change and doesn't even function that way effectively now.
Right there with you, except you can't have dimes and quarters without nickels. If I were in charge, it would be quarters (just because so many machines want them), 1, 5, and 20 dollar coins (maybe a 10 dollar), and $50, $100, and $500 bills. I'd argue for $1000 and $5000 as well. But what's the point? We're being squeezed from both ends -- small change is virtually worthless, and large bills are obviously only for drug dealing and tax evasion. When the two trends meet in the middle, *poof*, it's the end of cash.
Ok, thanks for the info. I thought it lasted into the 1970's. Maybe it was just the government did nothing to dissuade people from believing that. Point being, either way the coins served as bullion without the need to be melted.
Why even put nickel in the 5 cent coin? Go all copper for a few years or...steel like Canada has. A request for people to bring coins to their banks wouldn’t hurt Call me crazy
Because the vending machines are designed to accept that alloy composition and weight. And people are conditioned to see the nickel as that color. It has been that color/composition for almost 150 years. You could, but once again all the vending machines will reject them. Eventually the government is going to have to bite the bullet go ahead and change compositions and tell the vending machine industry "you're just going to have to go ahead and change all the coin mechanisms in your machines!" Won't hurt, but won't help either. It's been done several times in the past and has never really worked. Even at the start of WWII in 1942 when they appealed to peoples patriotism to bring their cents back to the banks so the mint could could reduced copper usage it didn't work.
Vending with nickels? 30 coins for a bottle of water. US cents are plated, why not plate nickels? Canada plates their steel 5 cent coins now.
We laugh about nickels, and yet I know machine owners still get outraged calls from customers who were shortchanged by five cents.
Gum ball machine. Quarters only. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08374FG4...uPWNsaWNrUmVkaXJlY3QmZG9Ob3RMb2dDbGljaz10cnVl
