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 Replies: 13 / Views: 3,753 |
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
3692 Posts |
Copper is at 3.48 while nickel is at 9.90 (per pound). For all the copper hoarders here, is it worth your while to keep nickels? I'm talking pure 100% nickel coins from Canada. Is American CuNi a better hedge because it has both?
(For those keeping nickel, the 5 Cent is worth the most in weight but the 10 Cent are easiest to store because of their small size and large denomination. Quarters are too expensive to keep sometimes.)
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
838 Posts |
Personally, I don't think it's worth it to save dimes or quarters. The nickel value in nickels is about 2 x face; in dimes and quarters it's currently less than face.
In theory, melting a dime or quarter is presently done so at a loss.
BUT the advantage of dimes and quarters is that when roll-searching the yield is much higher, since they were made of (nearly) pure nickel until 2000. For nickels, we must search for pre-82, of which the yield is 15-20% at best.
Copper versus Nickel: my vote is for Nickel. I was down at my local metal shredder the other day recycling a cast-iron stove. For fun, I asked them if they take "pennies" and basically got laughed at. I need to make friends with someone owning a smelter!
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
1051 Posts |
IMO, pre-'82 nickels are the only thing worth hoarding. CuNi is (again IMO) not
a good choice because most people are not going to be especially interested in
separating that alloy back into it's two elements, when they could just buy copper
cents or nickel nickels instead. It's one thing to refine a PGM alloy, but for
base metals I always try to keep it simple.
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Bedrock of the Community
Australia
21788 Posts |
How about getting rid of all the metallic coins and having injection moulded plastic coins? They would be certainly be more energy efficient to recycle,and presumably cost less to make.
Quite a few countries across the planet have plastic (Mylar) banknotes. They last very much longer than paper banknotes.
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Valued Member
United States
53 Posts |
Why make plastic coins and bills when you are so powerful as to issue everyone a single plastic card that stores their financial and personal info on it?
On another note, I store pre-1982 pennies and US nickels, years down the road they'll appreciate/store wealth. With that said, I don't go overboard with copper.
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Valued Member
Canada
496 Posts |
I toss all my pre 82 nickels in jars(can't go wrong on doubling your money )
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Pillar of the Community
 Canada
3692 Posts |
All the input so far is great. What are the uses for nickel these days? WWII saw use in tanks and warships, I believe. Nickel causes an allergic reaction with some people, we now use a lot less in the "P" or "L" coins. So what's it really used for? I know it's a strong metal. Copper seems more industrial and useful to me.
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Valued Member
Canada
386 Posts |
The 75% copper / 25% nickel cupro-nickel alloy, used in American nickels and 1982-2001 and some 2006 Canadian coins, is used commercially in marine applications. That particular combination is pretty inert in salty seawater, unlike most other metals.
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
838 Posts |
Quote:
... used commercially in marine applications. Cool -- I didn't know that and was kind of down on CuNi. But maybe some day I'll hoard these too. They will be easy to weed out too, as they're the only non-magnetic nickels (going back to the Chrome and Tombac days). Quote:
What are the uses for nickel these days? I've heard of applications to certain kinds of steel, but I am not clear on the details. |
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New Member
Canada
39 Posts |
The main use is in nickel alloys, stainless steel at the top!
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2408 Posts |
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Bedrock of the Community
Australia
21788 Posts |
Certainly, if nickel was not used in coins, there would be much less demand for nickel, thus the price would drop.
The greatest consumer of nickel on this Planet is for coinage. Perhaps it could be used for high denomination circulation coinage only. The current use of nickel in clad quarters is an efficient way to use nickel in coins, because of the comparatively high face value of a Quarter; the use of nickel in the Nickel is not.
C'mon you Wheat Eaters! I have not heard much complaint from you about my suggestion for plastic injection moulded coins!
I didn't think I could get away with a tongue - in- cheek comment like that!
On a different note, one of the most common alloys for stainless steel is known as 18/8, used for cutlery and common uses of sheet stainless steel. The 18 is for 18% nickel and the 8 is for 8% chromium; the balance is iron. Because the heavy metals are locked up in a solid metallic solution known as an alloy, they are not toxic. As most folks know, stainless steel can be used quite safely in equipment that involves food.
Edited by sel_69l
09/05/2010 02:26 am
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Valued Member
Canada
386 Posts |
The removal of nickel from all Canadian coins began in 1982, with a reduction from 99.999% to 25% in 5 cent coins and then conversion to steel cores in 5 cent, 10 cent, 25 and 50 cent coins in 2000/2001. The debasing process will be complete in 2011/12 when both the loonie and twonie will have all nickel cores removed and replaced with cheap steel.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2408 Posts |
Quote:
The greatest consumer of nickel on this Planet is for coinage. Perhaps not. According to M. Molloy, VP Nickel Development Institute in Europe, worldwide demand for coinage is probably closer to 1% of the total Nickel production. http://www.nickelinstitute.org/inde...i_id/160.htm |
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Replies: 13 / Views: 3,753 |
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Posted 09/04/2010 02:39 am
