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mtalbot_ca wrote:

camtender wrote:I might have asked that in the wrong manner. Is there just one government vendor that sorts, removes .999% and wraps the nickles? If so, I would guess that you could recognize the nickles from a particular wrapper coming from the banking system vs. ones that have not gone through the processes which removes the .999%.

The government is doing a Alloy Recovery Program (ARP) but I do not think that it processes nickels yet. They concentrated their effort on the .999 quarter instead.

Oh great, now you just alerted me to another item I should be hoarding. I must have had my head under a rock because I did not know the 1999 and earlier quarters were .999 too (just looked it up), I thought the recovery effort was just for the .05.

ZenOps wrote:Natural dilution with cupronickel and iron nickels also factors in.

In the year 2000 hoarded or not, there should have been 1.9 billion pre-81 pure nickels and 1.6 billion cupronickels. Meaning about 55% of nickels were pure. By the year 2011, they produced another 2.1 billion iron nickels. Which means if noone hoarded any nickel nickels at all, by natural dilution to this date - almost exactly 1/3rd should be nickel nickels, 1/3rd cupronickel, and 1/3rd iron nickels (33% each approximately)

So no, actually I think that its just normal people hoarding nickels after the runup to $23 per pound in 2007 (and hence a 23 cent nickel) Assuming that 2/3rds of the 1/3rd of remaining nickel nickels have been hand hoarded over the last 30 years - gives about 10%, which is where we are at now.

I don't think the ARP has been doing nickels at all. But for sure they did it back before 1954, its the only way to account for the ridiculously low number of pre-51s.

BUT: Its still a good time to do nickels, a lot of hoarders seem to have partially capitulated their hoard when at $7, I got two rolls of 1967 rabbits on a recent hunt.

So if you are in Vancouver BC and walk into the average downtown bank and ask for a box of nickles, will there be any if the box has been processed by the ARP vendor? Or should you ask for just customer rolled only?

It actually makes more sense for the ARP to do the quarters (and then dimes) first.

Higher percentages due to very late dilution (1999), and it does not cost them anything extra or less to simply replace a nickel quarter with an iron quarter as opposed to a nickel five cent or an iron five cent. The face value is pretty much insignificant to the mint, it costs absolutely no more or no less to stamp a "5c" or a "25c" on coin about 5 grams.

If the ARP started right at the year 2000, they would have got 100% pure nickel rate on quarters and dimes, but only a maximum of 55% on nickels (probably less because people did hoard nickel nickels before 2000)

http://www.mint.ca/store/mint/learn/25-cents-5300010

They may have done a "pre-cull" of quarters in 1996 and then flooded the market with 415 million iron quarters in 2000. Its usually what happens when coins are debased.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_pence_(British_coin)

You can see the same effect when the British 5-pence was shrunk. They did a pre-cull in 1980, and then flooded the system with 1.6 billion much smaller coins in 1990. I'd fully expect the 2012 British "iron 5 pence" mintage to be in the 2 billion range or so.

You have to understand how coins are processed to get why they do it the way they do.

If you are investing all the money in alloy separation technology, why wouldn't you take everything? Nickels, dimes, quarters, copper etc...

I always ask for customer wrapped, but have only been skunked with a batch of machine wrapped rolls once (and trust me, its a rare occurance, I've also found a silver dime in a nickel roll if that tells you how many I've been through.)

The main issue that will affect your nickel hoarding success if if there is another nickel hoarder at your favorite banks. The larger branches can usually handle two or three hoarders, but anything beyond that and you are fighting for them - and you will get several skunk rolls.

ARP is beyond any little peoples control, so I don't even worry about it - other than knowing that going for nickel quarters is pretty much a lost cause.

fasTT wrote:You have to understand how coins are processed to get why they do it the way they do.

If you are investing all the money in alloy separation technology, why wouldn't you take everything? Nickels, dimes, quarters, copper etc...

They still need a minimum 4 billion nickels and 40 billion pennies for circulation. They can't just take out all the coins at once, and they also can't produce all the iron coins at once. The mint has been busy this year creating a large batch of Iron loonies and toonies. I'm already shocked at how many iron loonies there are in circulation (but thats another story)

In 1999, they didn't need to sort quarters. Every quarter was pure nickel. One step removed.

Add: If they produce 200-300 million or so iron nickels in 2013 and on, natural dilution will greatly diminish the last pure nickels. If nickel should go over $10 per pound, it will also greatly reduce the percentages. There may be as little as four years left before you will on average - not find a pure nickel in a roll. I keep praying that nickel stays under $8 to give me some more time. I also fear Feb 4th/2013, when there will be penny hoarders who will no longer have pennies to hoard, and will probably move to nickels.

ZenOps wrote:

fasTT wrote:You have to understand how coins are processed to get why they do it the way they do.

If you are investing all the money in alloy separation technology, why wouldn't you take everything? Nickels, dimes, quarters, copper etc...

They still need a minimum 4 billion nickels and 40 billion pennies for circulation. They can't just take out all the coins at once, and they also can't produce all the iron coins at once. The mint has been busy this year creating a large batch of Iron loonies and toonies. I'm already shocked at how many iron loonies there are in circulation (but thats another story)

In 1999, they didn't need to sort quarters. Every quarter was pure nickel. One step removed.

Add: If they produce 200-300 million or so iron nickels in 2013 and on, natural dilution will greatly diminish the last pure nickels. If nickel should go over $10 per pound, it will also greatly reduce the percentages. There may be as little as four years left before you will on average - not find a pure nickel in a roll. I keep praying that nickel stays under $8 to give me some more time. I also fear Feb 4th/2013, when there will be penny hoarders who will no longer have pennies to hoard, and will probably move to nickels.[/quote]

Damn good point. I will step up my hoarding.....

Cheers,

Does/did the ARP cull copper pennies?

I visited the RCM in Winnipeg where they told me they do the ARP on nickels.

mtalbot_ca wrote:

ZenOps wrote:

fasTT wrote:You have to understand how coins are processed to get why they do it the way they do.

If you are investing all the money in alloy separation technology, why wouldn't you take everything? Nickels, dimes, quarters, copper etc...

They still need a minimum 4 billion nickels and 40 billion pennies for circulation. They can't just take out all the coins at once, and they also can't produce all the iron coins at once. The mint has been busy this year creating a large batch of Iron loonies and toonies. I'm already shocked at how many iron loonies there are in circulation (but thats another story)

In 1999, they didn't need to sort quarters. Every quarter was pure nickel. One step removed.

Add: If they produce 200-300 million or so iron nickels in 2013 and on, natural dilution will greatly diminish the last pure nickels. If nickel should go over $10 per pound, it will also greatly reduce the percentages. There may be as little as four years left before you will on average - not find a pure nickel in a roll. I keep praying that nickel stays under $8 to give me some more time. I also fear Feb 4th/2013, when there will be penny hoarders who will no longer have pennies to hoard, and will probably move to nickels.[/quote]

Damn good point. I will step up my hoarding.....

Cheers,

They can't take them all at once, as they do not all go through ARP at the same time. Coins still circulate and it may take years for an individual coin to get to an ARP member before it is processed. We still find silver in circulation coin DAILY. They have not been make in 45 years.

The mint pulls every single coin worth more to them dead than alive it can get its hands on. It will never get all of them, but over the years it will get most.

The mint also does not run just "iron" loonies. It runs all denominations at the same time as needed. They could make 10x the amount of coins per year if they wanted to. Your theory makes sense, but speaking from an inside, real world perspective on how this game works, you are mistaken.

The Canadian mint is allowed to pull coinage. Technically, the Queen owns all our copper and nickel coinage (the crown also took most of the Austrailian copper coinage many years ago)

The US mint is required to maintain the metal quality and not allowed to pull their coinage until they give the green light. Even though they are paying 11.12 cents to make every nickel - they are still required to make them, even at a significant loss (not even factoring in shipping)

If we don't hit a deflationary spiral (which IMO, we could be right on the cusp of today) it will soon cost the US 15 cents to produce a nickel. But in relative terms, it really doesn't matter what a US nickel costs to make, because you are always measuring it against fiat dollars that can be instantly created and destroyed. A mexican 20 peso 1959 coin is worth about $830 today, but it only got to that point because the relative value of the fiat it was measure against lost all meaning (mexico 1000:1 devaluation in 1993)

What is a US dollar worth? Hell if I know.

They don't make 10x more iron coinage than normal at the request of the banks. The banks do not want excess inventory of coinage that has to be shuffled around even more than now. So there is a limit as to how much can be created, without causing undue stress on the shipping and handling (the primary cost of coinage) Likewise, they cannot cull too many pure nickels - or there will not be enough for circulation.

There ARE some Canadian .999 nickels out there! I found quite a few today at my LCS. Not a large amount, probably a couple dollars worth, all .999 nickel.

I also found alot of Canadian coppers today too! Enough to make me happy....in addition to my 2 ounce Englehard silver acquistion

Not a bad day!

I just found out your government found more nickel this year over last-- From http://www.mint.ca/store/dyn/PDFs/RCM%20Q2-2012%20QFR%20FS%20-%20ENGLISH.pdf

The Alloy Recovery Program (ARP) continues to generate reasonable revenue and profit with
the coins recovered through the Mint’s recycling program. During the 13 weeks ended June 30,
2012, the Mint recovered and sold 272.0 metric tonnes of nickel and 57.0 metric tonnes of
cupronickel compared to 162.5 metric tonnes of nickel and 57.0 metric tonnes of cupronickel in
the same period in 2011. Revenues of the program for the quarter were $7.3 million compared to
$6.1 million in the same period in 2011.

Make your copper miners look small time.

I think that the ARP has been running since 2004. Assuming a tonnage 600 metric tons of .999 nickels average per year since the start. We can calculate how much .999 coins remains in circulation. I'll do that in the near future....

mtalbot_ca wrote:I think that the ARP has been running since 2004. Assuming a tonnage 600 metric tons of .999 nickels average per year since the start. We can calculate how much .999 coins remains in circulation. I'll do that in the near future....

Yes but 2007 for nickels--From --http://www.mint.ca/store/dyn/PDFs/RCM%20SUMMARY%202011-15%20I%20FINAL.pdf

ARP was established in 2004
to replace old alloy white metal coins with new multi-ply plated steel coins which are more
durable. The program started with the 25 cent coin and was expanded in 2007 to incorporate the
5-cent and 10-cent coins as well.

I didn't realize they were culling the cupronickel ones as well. Coin hoarding won't last long in Canada...

scyther wrote:I didn't realize they were culling the cupronickel ones as well. Coin hoarding won't last long in Canada...

Coin hoarding will last but the stockpiling at face value wont last long