Value of the Dollar

[Diogenes The Cynic]

Everyone complains about how paper money is worthless, and they're right. One thing people overlook is how coinage is still largely made of copper and nickel, two valuable elements.

A rush on coinage would hurt the feds quite a lot, it would look.

[BonerJoe]

Nickels are worth something like 9 cents.

[alaric89]

I know some people who are investing in nickels. It is literally a instint gain. With a hole in the middle they are worth more then 5 cents as a washer as well.

[anarchir]

Pennies from before 1982 can currently be sold by the pound on ebay. I have about 15 pounds worth in my precious metals hoard. Also, until they change the metal composition the worth of the metal in a nickel is certainly worth more than 5 cents. However, you will have to wait until they lift the ban on melting and until they change the metal composition.  Right now you can go to the bank and buy a ($50?) brick off of them and just stick it in your safe no sorting needed for nickels. Pennies can be sorted by date, weight, comparator or the less accurate "ding" test.

In other news I guess whatever politician that was pushing staying on paper dollars (due to connections he had to the people that supplied that paper) is gone now so they keep introducing bills to switch over to those hoards of worthless dollar coins they are sitting on that nobody wants.

[alaric89]

http://www.parkpennies.com/penny/penny.htm

[John Shaw]

However, you will have to wait until they lift the ban on melting and until they change the metal composition. 

Or you can melt 'em.

[BonerJoe]

Melting isn't a problem.

It's marketing big blobs of cupronickel to scrapping firms without being suspicious.

Or smelting it yourself.

[mikehz]

I'm old. Back in the day, silver coins were made with, well silver. When I was in high school during the Sixties, it became popular to make silver rings out of quarters by tapping on them on the edge for endless hours with a spoon. Then, the center was drilled out. Great fun! Try doing that now, with the fake quarters.

The trouble with silver coins is that they're hard to inflate. By the time I left hs, the government was replacing them with slugs.

[sillyperson]

http://www.coinflation.com/

[anarchir]

Melting isn't a problem.

It's marketing big blobs of cupronickel to scrapping firms without being suspicious.

Or smelting it yourself.

Its more than that actually. The point in waiting for the ban to be lifted is to make those options open, however the actual value of the coins is more than the value of the metal in them as they are bullion that has a guaranteed composition. Melt it down and you lose  that. You dont see people melting down mercury dimes do you?

[Fred]

Melting isn't a problem.

It's marketing big blobs of cupronickel to scrapping firms without being suspicious.

Or smelting it yourself.

Its more than that actually. The point in waiting for the ban to be lifted is to make those options open, however the actual value of the coins is more than the value of the metal in them as they are bullion that has a guaranteed composition. Melt it down and you lose  that. You dont see people melting down mercury dimes do you?

Actually, back in 87 a girlfriend had a jeweler melt down silver dimes and made me a cool anchor chain bracelet from them - not sure they were Mercury dimes but they were silver dimes....

[Bill Brasky]

It would probably cost you five dollars worth of energy to melt five dollars worth of nickles. 

[BonerJoe]

Move to Hawaii, utilize heat of volcano.

[Bill Brasky]

Smartypants.

[Diogenes The Cynic]

http://www.metalprices.com/

Copper has a melting point of 1084 degrees Celsius. Dunno what the break even point would be for a kiln.