Opinion On This? Know Anything On This Nickel Bar?

Interesting discussion. As a coin/token maker and owner of a small private mint I may have another perspective.

I was the first to make and sell base-metal bullion denominated in troy ounces. My 2006 Copper Country piece declares it as one troy ounce of .997 copper. It was actually quite heavy at 36 grams, I considered it something of a joke.... based on the idea that copper was rising in price so fast that it seemed like it was becoming the new "precious metal". It's been said that "Silver is the poor man's gold, but copper is the poor man's silver". All very amusing! Plus I wanted to celebrate the Quincy Mine which is now a National Historic site. My 2006 coin retails for $20. I never suggested that buying it was a good way to invest in copper! But... since 2006 several private mints have jumped on the bandwagon. The guys that are doing these bison rectangle bars have a bad habit of misrepresenting the purity of their metals, and for suggesting that people should be investing in metals through this medium, which is of course ludicrous.

By the way... there is essentially NO SUCH THING AS .999 COPPER! Anybody who claims their copper is .999 pure is either lying or misinformed. Pure electrolytic copper straight from the cathode always has about 0.3% by weight dissolved oxygen, which is very difficult to get out, and except for extreme metallurgical research purposes does not matter. But it's there! Pure copper maxes out at about .997 purity.

Many collectors seem to think that they should be able to buy metal coins or bars at spot price. Well... as has been mentioned above... in the case of US nickels, you can! But only because the treasury is LOSING MONEY on every nickel they mint! You can expect the US government to do something that stupid, but no private mint is going to purposefully drive themselves to bankruptcy just to supply some hoarders with undervalued metal.

So what you are really buying is an example of a piece of art. The most important questions you should be asking are not about the melt value of the metal, but about who the die-engraver artist was, and how was the piece actually done? You might query about mintages. I believe that die engravers are the ugly stepchildren of the art world. Coins/tokens are art, but very few of the artists ever become known, and buyers of that art generally don't care who the artist is. Sad! But if the seller is straight-up about the pieces they offer, you are a follower of the engraver, and/or you enjoy the art and the concept, and/or the weight and feel of the piece, then by all means buy it! Buy what you like and take enjoyment in the ownership. But if you are offended by misleading statements from the seller or ambivalent about the piece itself, then don't buy it! The relative melt value should have very little to do with it unless (like me) you are actually going to melt them down to make something else!

By the way, I did the math for
http://www.copperbullioncoin.com/10...unce-rounds/

Copper price, as of 2012 05 24 at 8:31PM PST
$3.4747 Per ounce

They are selling 170 ounces of copper for $100

$3.4747 times 170 = Over $590

Does that mean I actually save $490?

All right. Thank you for helping me make my decesions.

copper is $3.4747 per pound not ounce

So Spider, after building your foundry and pouring your bars, do you feel differently about the prices being charged for copper bars? What would you sell yours for? Would that price adequately compensate you for the time, effort, energy, and equipment expense?

And I'm sure you realize that you can't call remelted scrap copper .997 unless you scrupulously trim off all soldered pipe connections, and pull out every scrap of brass or other materials.

I have made a few copper kilogram bars. I bought bar stock 2" wide by 1/2" thick and cut off 7" pieces, which weighed just over a kilo. So far so good. But you can't buy millstock like that for spot! Somebody had to roll it out etc. It was more like $10 / lb. So after I did all my work my bar came out pretty expensive and hardly anybody bought one, which is why I don't bother making them anymore.

Really, if you want to invest in copper you need to buy a pallet load of full-plate cathode sheets. They run about 300 pounds apiece and you can stack them nicely, and they're hard to steal.

Spider, can you show us pics of your bars?

I've got no place to store them.

That would require a lot of refinery costs.

No place to store them.... full cathode plate? Are you kidding? Just throw them on the ground! Anywhere... behind the garage, in the garden, next to the driveway... wherever! They'll be fine. Okay okay if you want to get fancy you can dump some used motor oil on pile and then throw some pieces of cardboard on it and let them get oily too... maybe some rocks or a piece of crappy plywood to hold the cardboard down. That would hold your stash for... oh... at least fifty years or so. Probably more in a covered dry spot.

Apartment dweller... uh... okay sorry. You kinda need a permanent home-base to invest in copper. Significant value in it is hard to transport.

England in the early 1700s, Mintmaster of the Tower Mint was a royal appointment. The mintmaster was paid a percentage of the monetary value of the coin he issued each year. From the mintmaster's percentage would come all the expenses and salaries of the mint. So think about the priorities of the mintmaster. He wants to see the most VALUE in coins go out the door as possible. So of course he will always be calling the crown for more gold to mint up. And lacking gold, he will gladly mint as much silver as you can bring him. But copper? Shudder at the thought. All that work for so little return! Gasp! All the mint report references I saw always referred to mintages in silver or gold in pounds or guineas, but copper coinages were referred to in tonnes. So many tonnes of copper coin sent in barrels etc.

And that was the origin of the small-coin shortage that struck the British Isles and resulted in the production of all those wonderful private-mint coins of that period.