dannan14 wrote:ZenOps wrote:Nickel is 10x rarer than Copper, Gold is 15.5x rarer than Silver. Its a comparable ratio: Nickel is to copper as gold is to silver.
Not really a comparable ratio because so much silver gets used in industrial applications and is not recovered (like it was when photography was the major industrial use of silver). The amount of above ground gold is much higher than 15,5x the amount of above ground silver.
Nickel was used at a 5% ratio to iron to make stainless steel. For the most part of the last century, stainless steel was thrown away (if you thought silver was thrown away in large amounts, nickel was even more so)
If you melted down all the pure nickels that Canada produced, we could make about 40 or so tanks, or maybe one aircraft carrier. The primary use of nickel is plated armor, which is why the US replaced the 1.25 grams of nickel during WWII with nearly 1.5 grams of silver... Because nickel was in much greater scarcity and worth more than silver gram per gram.
Copper, never ever came close to equivalent value to silver at any point in the last 2,000 years.
The only reason the US still has 25% nickel nickels, is because we are basically giving away our nickel for free in some convoluted trade agreement. Like when we gave you a Billion dollars worth of free softwood lumber.
Zinc has technically never been considered a monetary metal. Its actually deadly, and has killed many a dog that have accidentally swallowed a zinc penny and stomach acids have dissolved the copper coating.