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 Replies: 29 / Views: 5,622 |
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Valued Member
United States
296 Posts |
Quote:Nickel closed @ $12.63 a pound today. A regular garden variety Jefferson nickel is now 144% (about 7.2 cents). At what point are these guys worth keeping? Seriously, probably never. They are an alloy of non precious metals. Are they copper bullion that is .750 fine? Or nickel bullion that is .250 fine? They are an 75/25 alloy of Cu/Ni, not the commonly used 70/30 and 80/20 alloys. Alloys are rarely (if ever) worth the sum of their parts. You will never get the individual values for the copper and the nickel. Until these base metals are treated like precious metals, you will never get full price for them. They will always be scrap metal, priced as such. The website that post these melt values state they are "theoretical" melt values. Theoretical cannot be over emphasized... Take some foreign Cu/Ni coins to a scrap dealer and see what the going rate for that alloy is, then compare it to the "theoretical" melt value... If you really want some exposure to nickel bullion, there are much better routes to take. Pre-'82 Canadian nickels would be an excellent choice. So would French ½, 1 and 2 Francs and Dutch 1 and 2½ Guldens from the mid '60s up to when they went to the Euro. They were also .999 fine nickel and can be found in junk foreign coin boxes aplenty. I am getting them 12 for a dollar. the weights ranging from 4.5 grams to 10 grams each. The Canadian nickel weighs 4.54 grams. Not trying to negative, just trying to get everyone to think this through. Do your own research and make an informed decision before tying up your capitol. Quote:What about the Jeffersons? Can you find silver War Nickels, (or the 1950-D) in circulation?[ Yes, I have found over 230 War Nickels. Except for the '50D and the 2009P, I, as others, have come close to putting together a full set of Jefferson's from circulation. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
3592 Posts |
Bowfin...good factual post...however, "perceived value" can sometimes throw facts out the window. I've seen it happen often enough to make a believer out of me.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
6326 Posts |
 I agree......nobody's melting Lincolns...but yet they're being bought, sold, & traded for the Copper value now (pre-82's). Some coins are more difficult, and unrealistic to melt with their alloy mixtures, to retrieve their desired precious metal content, as pointed out.... but if the "theoretical trading value" becomes popular..... No one would ever actually HAVE to melt anything. Kind of like junk Silver coins, same deal....they're not pure Silver either, and I believe it's against the law to melt any coinage anyway, unless the Govt. does it. Edited by eaglefoot
02/06/2011 10:20 am
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
3692 Posts |
Bimetallism doesn't really hedge your bets. What I think will end up happening is that one metal will become the favoured metal and the other will drop in value. I think it's gonna be copper to rise.
If you're banking on metal contents, go for bronze pennies or Canadian nickels (they are 100% Ni).
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2168 Posts |
Anyone start to save your nickels. I try to find information on this just to feel out what the general consensus is. I have saved some nickels and found quite a few war silver nickels as well as Buffalo nickels. I just think it's a win win and no loss (except small amount of interest if in bank) investment. Many advise to keep some cash easily available and to me some in nickels is at least 'real'money. Any thoughts? |
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
17884 Posts |
Quote:
Kind of like junk Silver coins, same deal....they're not pure Silver either, and I believe it's against the law to melt any coinage anyway, unless the Govt. does it. Perfectly legal to melt silver coinage, and the silver refineries melt down a lot of them all the time. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
511 Posts |
I agree with Rawles. Rolls of nickels at face value are a cheap, no-brainer buy.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2168 Posts |
Yes. I actually started saving nickels before late winter when his article was re written. There also is a hedge fund that got 1 million dollars worth of nickels. It is just a no real cost investment that most likely will appreciate as metaLs rise and when the mint changes the composition of nickels or our currency is devalued
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1150 Posts |
I'm still saving nickels. I have ammo cans full of searched and then re-rolled rolls.
I don't care what anyone says; It is a no cost way of saving some cold, hard cash.
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Valued Member
 United States
228 Posts |
eaglefoot: I agree with your suggestion that coins containing more metal value than face value will not have to be melted to trade in commerce at higher rates than face... Obviously we see this all ready in 90% silver coins. I believe we will also one day see, $1000 face bags of 95% copper cents, or possibly even the 75% copper 25% nickel Jefferson nickels. The cost to extract (or separate) the metals from each other, will of course be factored into the equation of how much a $1000 face bag of Lincoln cents be worth. Metal value may be $3000, but costs of melting etc. may make the bags sell at only $2500 etc... (you get the idea). Once it is legal to melt 95% copper Lincoln cents, you can bet their market value (now at about 1.5 - 1.9 cents) according to ebay pricing - will rise. Whenever it happens is fine with me. In the meantime, I'll continue to add to my stack of copper, (and silver)  |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
3294 Posts |
At 1/300 the relative value of silver, I don't think that will happen simply because storage space and weight would be an issue. Anyone can store $50 of face silver, it would weigh 2-3 lbs, but for the same wealth, you would need about 700 lbs of nickels.
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
20753 Posts |
One scarry thing about this post is that most people do not realize that a Nickel is basically Copper. Once the people that massively melt down Cents realize this, Nickels too will be dumped in with Cents, wire, cable, etc. at the smelters. I've got several Albums of all types of Nickels but never thought of massively collecting bulk quantities for just in case. However, now that this post brings up the percent of Copper in Nickels, I just might start compiliing a little bulk quantity myself.
I wonder how many people that do the smelting routine know this.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2168 Posts |
Can't hurt to have a few boxes of nickels. You can fill a collection book since virtually all are out there in circulation
Plus the bonus of A silver one or two per $100!!
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1150 Posts |
We can't assume that most people here do not know that a nickel is 75% copper.
You know what they say about assuming...
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Replies: 29 / Views: 5,622 |
First Page
Posted 02/05/2011 8:44 pm
