by ZenOps » Sun Nov 11, 2012 7:59 am
Nickel plays differently than the other coin metals.
Silver and gold are arguably levered 100:1 paper:physical on the open market. Meaning that anytime you have a big market selloff (like people trying to avoid the fiscal cliff) those tend to drop the hardest. Copper is more around 10:1, but is primarly used as collateral by the Chinese market for gambling on other things.
Nickel is arguably 5:1, which makes it quite a bit more unique. I wouldn't say its immune to a paper market crash, but even so - in a physical world, it may be easier to get two ounces of gold at spot in a crash situation, than $8 FV worth of US nickels - From a realists viewpoint anyhow.
The metal that is traded at closest to 1:1 is the metal that the market has decided is the most like "money" at any given point in time. Gold was much closer to 1:1 back in 1933, Silver in 1964. The US desperately tried to make 8.1 grams of copper into a dollar, but it failed miserably.
Just some thoughts.
Beaver collector