Where Are All The Ikes?

Well, I can tell you that of yesterday, a coin dealer I patronize suddenly had a whole bunch, certainly several dozen and mostly circulated "beaters", for which he said he had paid $1.05 apiece. I violated my rule on these that I only get mine from the bank at face value, and ponied up #1.10 each for ten of varying dates I cherrypicked that were clearly uncirculated (their bright copper edges stood out like the proverbial sore thumb), and were actually really high grade examples at that (almost zero bagmarks).

True but the cost of production will also be higher. You will have to add a lot of nickel to the melted Ike to bring the melt up to 25% nickel Then there will be a lot of copper needed for the center clad layer. Then after the strip is blanked you have the losses from the scrap material so you MIGHT be able to get two SBA's for the Ikes. But we don't make SBA's anymore, and if you go with dimes quarters or halves your losses are even greater. Best return probably comes from melting, adding nickel and making five cent pieces out of them. Al lease for that you can reuse the scrap without any further addition of metal and get a closer one to one face value exchange.

I have 3 of them: a 1971 and 2 bicentennial, P&D. The 1976-D clearly has circulated for a while. Bought in a lot of US coins wich was $9 FV circa for €10.