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Message:: [QUOTE="John Burgess, post: 7803153, member: 105098"]no it's the cost of the metals, and the alloying, and all costs factored into the per unit cost of a nickel. The cost to make one exceeds it's face value. and yeah, the cost to melt, and separate an alloy likely eats up all profits of trying to sell it. I am sure there is some weight amount that would make it profitable, but I don't know what that point is where it becomes profitable. Much easier and cheaper for the mint to melt the nickels down and then reprocess them  into new nickels of the same composition, a one trick pony. Same way trying to remove gold plating isn't profitable unless you have enough of it that the recovered gold exceeds the cost of doing it. you'd need a lot to cover time, safety equipment and chemicals. although refining a 14K or 18K gold into 24K can be profitable at less weight, it's more gold in the alloy. but most folks doing it aren't going to bother trying to reclaim the silver or copper in the mix, they aren't worth the effort to do it. The talking point is that the cost to make a nickel exceeds the face value of it though. Scrap values are a lot different, than manufacturing costs.[/QUOTE]