US Newstory: Mint to Ban Melting Pennies & Nickels

All the cheap clad rots away pretty quick, a sad loss to the detectionists.


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http://www.thunting.com/smf/index.php/topic,1102.msg9223.html#msg9223

		Quote:			Posted by stringfrenzy
	I've had problems with those kinds of coins as well sue.  Can't even get the bank to take them as damaged currency. Doc,  Yeah, no crime committed with the meltdown but in large quantity people start to look for a crime sometimes... If a person could get away with it though I would say let them try.  Just like with the silver meltdown i'm sure it drove the collector price up on certain coins due to supply.  Let them try to drive the prices up again on some of the other coins that people collect. Just seems like there would be a "not so suspicious" way to do it.

AMEN

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http://www.thunting.com/smf/index.php/topic,1102.msg9231.html#msg9231

YOU DONT NEED THE INSURANCE IS CORRECT. I DO.

I DONT SEE THE NEED FOR XTRA SPACE,FILLING IT WITH XTRA WEIGHT TO KEEP FROM JING LINGY.

I'LL HAVE A POST OFFICE WEIGHT @ MY END~YOU @ YOURS~AND COUNT ON MIDLAND.

NOTHING WRITTEN IN STONE TILL YOUR MAN WEIGHS THEM. I GUESS WILL HAVE TO TRUST YOUR SCALE FOR PROPER TARE.

THANX~JEFF

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http://www.thunting.com/smf/index.php/topic,1102.msg9269.html#msg9269

Yeah, you got the name right and yes she does seem to be a peach.  Seemed like a very nice person when I spoke with her. 

With a deal like that on pennies maybe I should have spoke with you that day as well.

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http://www.thunting.com/smf/index.php/topic,1102.msg9278.html#msg9278

Stringfrenzy

I agree about not melting them. Hoarding sounds better : ) I was just reading this article from Daily Reckoning about the mint & the ban. It is about nickels & on that subject, do you find a lot of nickels detecting? I was told back when I was a newbie that detecting nickels is a sign that you have the detector tuned properly for the conditions of the day. When I was hitting the old park hard, some days it seemed like all I was finding was nickels and other times I was finding everything but them. Sue

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The future worth of a nickel

. . . . The Mint had to be crazy to announce that a nickel is worth 7 cents. I got to thinking about this a bit more, and a nickel is really 0.05 dollars plus a call option on the price of copper and nickel (the metals) in the nickel. If that option is ITM (in the money) enough, the mint cannot prevent people from hoarding them, which will in turn drive up the cost of producing them.

In fact, the actual price does not even have to get high enough; the mere expectation that metal prices will get high enough could cause hoarding. Of course, the Mint tried to negate that call option by making it illegal to melt the coins, but that will not stop hoarding if the expected or actual price of copper and nickel gets high enough.

All the Mint really accomplished was telling everyone that a nickel is backed up by something useful, even if a dollar is not. Eventually, this is likely to force the mint to debase the nickel by replacing the copper and nickel in the nickel with steel or aluminum.

Recall that the Mint long ago replaced much of the nickel in nickels with copper, just as it removed the silver in silver dollars and replaced the copper in pennies with zinc. That is actually the process I was referring to when I suggested nickels would soon be confiscated.

In the short term, it is likely the value of a nickel drops to a nickel or less because of the falling price of copper. If there were as much nickel in nickels as there used to be, then nickels would be worth even more than today's copper nickels.

. . . . . . . . "If base metal values continue to increase by 5% per year on average, and the dollar continues to depreciate by about the same, then in about 26 1/2 years, a nickel will be worth a dollar in inherent value. If the rates are 10% per year, then in a bit over 13 years, this milestone will be reached."

. . . In the short term, I am still calling for a pullback in copper prices. But what's to lose by hoarding nickels? Oddly enough, hoarding nickels is a hedge against both hyperinflation and deflation. If hyperinflation kicks in, a nickel might be worth more than a quarter (in metal content) in no time flat. If deflation kicks in as I suspect, cash will be a good thing to have. If you are going to hold cash (change), it may as well be in nickels.

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