lance wrote:....should i dump nickels
Yes.
and spend the money on silver?
Maybe. Or Cu pennies, .999 Ni or what ever else. Free up your capitol you have wasting away in a base metal alloy.
I find it incredibly improbable that CuNi will ever get refined to separate the two metals. Like red/yellow brass and bronze, it too will get recycled into new things of the same/similar alloys. The demand for .999 Cu and Ni will be satisfied will recycled .999 Cu and Ni.
Take a foreign CuNi coin to a scrap sealer. Tell him/her you have quantity. After he tells you the real world melt value, we can then compare and contrast that with the "theoretical" melt value.
Just my 2 Canadian bronze cents.