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Whats your answer and why? I could see why people say coppers...its already worth double its value...nickels are worth about 6 cents a pop at the moment...but long term...even 5 yrs down the road....couple the nickel surpase the copper in value?

copper. Nickel I can grab anytime, any amount.

As I understand the situation nickels are not hard to acquire, and the composition has never changed. So no one will buy them if there's no need to sort them and no need to buy them when the bank can hand you a box of nickels that's nearly, completely full of same composition nickels. Nickels also aren't in the immediate danger of being eliminated and free to melt.

I save both. I'm saving the cu pennies because they are worth more than face now. I'm keeping nickels because I think they'll be worth more in the not-to-distant future.

I hoard both, being Canadian has it's advantages especially with .999 nickels. I doubt that cupronickels will ever be worth much, even if Cu and Ni goes crazy in the base metal markets. The cost to seperate the 75/25% mix is very costly and would pretty much eat any profits you'd make. At current market value of 5.4 cents, you'd need copper at 9.00lb and nickel at nearly 25.00lb to match a pre 1981 Canadian nickel. Which mostly bring 3x FV of 0.15 or 15.00 a lb. I have also wondered about hoarding Canadian 1982-99 cupronickels, though others have recommended it ties up too much capital and is not worth it. Pennies all the way for the Americans.

BOTH!

Cu Lung wrote:I hoard both, being Canadian has it's advantages especially with .999 nickels. I doubt that cupronickels will ever be worth much, even if Cu and Ni goes crazy in the base metal markets. The cost to seperate the 75/25% mix is very costly and would pretty much eat any profits you'd make. At current market value of 5.4 cents, you'd need copper at 9.00lb and nickel at nearly 25.00lb to match a pre 1981 Canadian nickel. Which mostly bring 3x FV of 0.15 or 15.00 a lb. I have also wondered about hoarding Canadian 1982-99 cupronickels, though others have recommended it ties up too much capital and is not worth it. Pennies all the way for the Americans.

You make a very good point here....almost a good enough point to dump my nickels and buy more silver and copper....hmmmm?

I say "both". Have to be diversified. But I also think that the Canadian nickel is a better play on nickel than the American nickel, unless you had some old or rare dated ones to further diversify between bullion and some numismatic coins. I have a 1930 MS64 Buffalo that has appreciated pretty good. Never put all your eggs in one basket or all you investments in one asset class.

Copper Pennies. Not only do you get more value for your money with them but you will be able to see your return on them a lot sooner than you will nickels.

highroller4321 wrote:Copper Pennies. Not only do you get more value for your money with them but you will be able to see your return on them a lot sooner than you will nickels.

Agree

I only keep the pre 64 nickels thinking that they may have a collectors value in the future. Regular nickels are just to easy to get why tie your money up. It is fun however to go through them. I also keep all the 2009 nickels and dimes.

Both.

I think of it like this: While there have been literally tens of billions of nickels and pennies made, when spread out amongst 311 million people - each person technically only has about $8 in nickels and $9 in pennies as their "fair share". If the US should ever one day go back to a metal standard, you can be sure that some people will get more than their $17 in nickels and pennies, and some will get less.

If the US were to go back to a "gold" or "silver" standard, it would bring up the value of all metals in general. So that each $8 worth of nickels would probably be tradeable for an ounce of silver or so (which would be just about right for the amount of silver for every US citizen *ONE* ounce, there is not enough non-allocated silver to give two ounces for every US citizen.) As to what the "dollar" value of the one ounce of silver and five ounces of nickel would actually be worth? Who knows.

The old trade ratio of five 25% or five pure nickels for one 80% or 90% silver quarter is in many ways - a somewhat accurate ratio based on relative rarity, demand and supply. Going back to a metal standard will definitely bring both pennies and nickels back up to much higher values.

If you invest $2000 at todays interest rates, you might get back $40 of extra fiat at the end of the year - which will probably buy you less than whatever you wanted to buy if you bought it at the beginning of the year. If you invest in the stock market you might just lose it all.

If you buy twenty bricks of nickel, you will always at least have $2,000 and in the case of Canadian pure nickels, it might even be worth $9,200 (back when nickel was $23/pound) But as always, you actually have to have the physical nickels. If the banks run out (and yes, they definitely can and do run out) you may only get your fair share, $8 worth.

I'm sure a person back in 1932 said "There will always be gold dollars, there is no need to convert my paper to it" and 1963 "There will always be silver dimes and quarters, there is no need to convert to it". Really all it takes are a few dozen "Kyle Bass" types, and your spare change can and will disappear within a matter of a few years, leaving most with less than one ounce of silver, five ounces of nickel, and five pounds of copper.

Silver could hit $200 an ounce, but what good is it if you can't even get one physical ounce?

marine70 wrote:I only keep the pre 64 nickels thinking that they may have a collectors value in the future. Regular nickels are just to easy to get why tie your money up. It is fun however to go through them. I also keep all the 2009 nickels and dimes.

+1, though I only keep pre 60

copper, and here's why.

the folks who recommend nickels are lazy and uninformed. they don't want to do sorting.

even if you don't want to sort, you can still buy sorted pennies here. i bought more than $2500 here over time, all at 1.3x or less. now, that is not easy, but if you go to 1.4 or 1.5x it can be done more quickly.

now, a copper has a melt value of 2.5x, and a nickel less than 1.1x.

even if you bought coppers at 1.6x, you are still getting them at a 60% discount to melt. stated differently, if the melt ban were removed tomorrow, you have a 60% potential profit potential without sorting a single penny.

further, there are two additional advantages to pennies. first, the melt ban is likely to be lifted with pennies sooner than nickels because of pure economics. pennies are more expensive to make relative to their face value, and have already been debased. nickels could be debased to steel or zinc as an intermediate step.

second, cents are 95% pure and therefore require less refining. nickels are only 75% pure.

the one advantage of nickels is you can buy at face, and if you cant stick with this speculation then you have instant liquidity and no loss of investment. coppers at 1.6x are difficlut to liquidate. even at 1.3x, it requires substantial work and a sore back.

I currently collect both. My nickel stash is quite a bit larger than my pennies at the moment, but that will be changing in the coming months and years ahead. I'll still collect the nickels, but I am considering roll searching other denominations too.

Are 2009 dimes worth anything for collecting purposes? I just figured that since I'm having problems getting the 09 nickels, I could start searching dimes?

I get about $60 in pennies to sort. I keep every nickel I get in change, and sometimes get a few rolls here and there. the difference I see is nickels hold up so well, you can put a 1950 up against a 1990 and not tell them apart quickly if they are both in good shape. I think more keeper nickels are in the wild for that reason.

Actually, all US coinage is copper in my view.

Its just that dimes and quarters have a 8% nickel coating, and your nickels have 25% nickel content (which means its actually a copper coin, with a little bit of nickel additive) IMO: Your dimes and quarters since 1965 have always just been slightly larger pennies masquerading as nickel coins.

I mean really, Canada now has 2% nickel coated steel coinage (including $2 coins all the way to "nickels") There is no way I'd call a 2% nickel content coin a nickel coin either.

So yes - for the people in the US, you probably want the copper pennies. IMO, the US could never afford a pure nickel coin right from the start, haha! Your copper dollars (Sacagawea, SusanB, Presidential) are just big pennies to me, about 2.5 pennies worth to be exact (8.1 grams)

For people in Canada, you want one of the 1.85 billion pure nickels made from 1922 to 1981, which sounds like a lot - but then you realize that 50 years of nickel production is basically just one nickel for every person in China. And then that nickel starts to look like gold.

ZenOps wrote:Actually, all US coinage is copper in my view.

Its just that dimes and quarters have a 8% nickel coating, and your nickels have 25% nickel content (which means its actually a copper coin, with a little bit of nickel additive) IMO: Your dimes and quarters since 1965 have always just been slightly larger pennies masquerading as nickel coins.

I mean really, Canada now has 2% nickel coated steel coinage (including $2 coins all the way to "nickels") There is no way I'd call a 2% nickel content coin a nickel coin either.

So yes - for the people in the US, you probably want the copper pennies. IMO, the US could never afford a pure nickel coin right from the start, haha! Your copper dollars (Sacagawea, SusanB, Presidential) are just big pennies to me, about 2.5 pennies worth to be exact (8.1 grams)

For people in Canada, you want one of the 1.85 billion pure nickels made from 1922 to 1981, which sounds like a lot - but then you realize that 50 years of nickel production is basically just one nickel for every person in China. And then that nickel starts to look like gold.

200 lbs of pure .999 nickel in 2 months it isn't that hard to find, just grab 5 boxes a day lol.

No need to hoard US nickels yet. When they vote to change the composition, then you get in your truck and visit each bank within x miles radius and get all the nickels before everyone else.

Go Copper or Silver or Pure nickel if you're in canada.

If we're lucky. Nickels may become magnetic, making them fairly easy to sort. But I personally think buying and storing boxes of nickels is a waste of money. The turnover right now is a way too low to just hold nickels. And if the melt ban were to be lifted, I think it would be hard to make a profit if you didn't have ten's of thousands of dollars worth.

There are plenty of other ways to invest your $$. Just my 2 cents.

~JobIII