Excuse the ignorance of this question...

[CtrlAltBernanke]

So I've seen people on the internet sell wheat pennies buy the pound (any condition) from anywhere between $5-$9 even though they have the same melt value as a regular penny. My question is, would I be correct in assuming that once a new 5 cent alloy is announced that there is a good chance that war nickels would eventually see a jump in price that would be greater than their melt value?
Thanks,
Jim

[uthminsta]

Hmmm... interesting observation. Had never considered that. But I doubt they ever would, except in nice brilliant uncirculated grades.
Also, wonderful screen name as well.

[theo]

If you mean silver war nickels, the answer is no. They have a melt value of $1.73 due to their 35% silver content and may very well be the ugliest silver coins in existance. They seem to go for around 80% of melt value.

[CtrlAltBernanke]

I didn't know that they were the ugliest coins in existence but now that you mention it. I've seen a handful for websites and coin shops announcing that they 'have NO war nickels.' I thought that this was because they were so popular. Perhaps it's because they don't want to deal with them.

[twoten01]

yeah they are not popular, they would be the least popular of US "junk" coins, but hey I"ll find them all day long for .5 a piece, then sell them on ebay and put the cash towards 100 oz bars

[Kurr]

Due to the composistion they are harder to refine. You cant treat them like sterling to remove the silver. You have to add a bunch of pure silver to it to get the percentage up enough for it to be electrlytically refined. And nickel particles from incineration form particles which are barbed and when they get in your lungs the barbs make sure they do not come out, staying in and causing irritation and infections.

Nickel is bad stuff to work with and the low percentage of silver versus the difficultiy of working the material make it less desirble to refiners.

[ZenOps]

Nickel is notoriously hard to mine and mint. Copper, silver and gold are all easily made into coins, and have been for thousands of years.

Nickel is a much more recent monetary metal, the US had great difficulty minting 25% nickels in 1866, several had "weak strikes" and "die cracks", and Canada had several "weak strike" 99.9% nickels from 1922 to 1929 (Pure nickel is incredibly difficult to make coins with, even today)

Its also hard to refine, as the temperature is higher than other metals and has dangerous fumes.

In reality, nickel is much more expensive from an energy expendature standpoint to extract, smelt, refine, mint and recover than any other monetary metal. Which makes a pure nickel quite an achievement IMO. Its no wonder that most of the nickel was extracted back when oil was $3.39 a barrel.

Arugably, it was cheaper to not only use silver for the war nickels, they were also much easier to mint - just because of the softness of silver and manganese. Copper is so soft by nature, that they have to harden it with 5% zinc or 3% tin to make it usable as a coin - otherwise it would deform within the first few years of usage. I think I heard somewhere that it takes about two orders of magnitude more energy to press a nickel coin, than a copper coin (IE: one ton for a copper, 100 tons of force for a nickel or something to that effect)

[Hawkeye]

That's interesting. I had always heard that nickel was harder to work with than the other commonly used metals, but I had no idea it was that bad. And, call me crazy, but I like the old "black beauties." It's cheap silver with a little history.

[CtrlAltBernanke]

When I read above about how difficult it is to deal with nickel, I have images of newbie mint workers being assigned to nickel duty first and the more tenured people having it easy in the dime or quarter section of the mint. The people getting close to their twenty years of retirement are doing silver and gold with better parking and a better view on their floor. I can hear all the mint workers telling the newbies that if they are able to cut it in the nickel mint for two years then they will move to pennies and then dimes. Lol.

[SilverDragon72]

I think that it would be fun to work at the US Mint! Think of all the first hand knowledge a person could get...not too mention first information on upcoming coinage!

[CtrlAltBernanke]

And now I have visions of some 80 year old man whose been working the nickel mint since he was discharged from the Korean War. This guy doesn't take any crap from anybody including his new kid boss that doesn't have a clue and so this battle hardened nickel worker has to explain to his new boss who is 40 years younger than him how to do his job. He laughs at every newbie nickel worker who complains about how they can't wait to move to the penny section of the mint. This old man is the only one who makes nickels that is pretty much allowed to walk into the silver and gold section of the mint to bs with those guys who are ready to retire. Anyway...

[Klark Cent]

I think that it would be fun to work at the US Mint! Think of all the first hand knowledge a person could get...not too mention first information on upcoming coinage!

i always think of that too and i imagine myself trying to figure out how to create error coins and stuff.