Even better:
Today is a good day to die.
I didn't say for whom.
Posted on 02/06/2011 4:25:44 PM PST by blam
Why You Need to Own Nickels, Right Now
Robert Wenzel
Saturday, February 5, 2011
On November 11, 2010, I wrote in the EPJ Daily Alert:
Back at the commodity level, copper is the latest to hit a record at $8,966 a ton. Copper is certainly not a "goldbug" play and is simply an indicator of economic (inflationary) demand. At some point, nickels, which are mostly made of copper, will start to disappear from circulation.
There's right now 6.2 cents worth of metal in a nickel [Note the value is now up to 7.2 cents.-RW]. When I run into someone that does not have a strong background in investing, I now tell them to buy nickels. You need storage space and a strong back to move them around, but a $100 box of nickels (roughly the size of a very large brick) can be lifted without a problem. You can stack plenty of "bricks" on a hand truck.
What's great about this investment is that there is no downside. In the unlikely event that there is no inflation, you can just spend your nickels... again, this is a great conservative investment...I fully expect the coins will eventually climb in value to at least double their 5 cent price.
The government has made it illegal to melt them down, but you will never have to do anything close to that. When you need to liquidate, just sell them to a numismatic dealer.
Gresham's law (bad money drives good money out of circulation) will take over at some price point and the coins will simply disappear from circulation, just like the pre-1965 silver content dimes and quarters have, and trade at much higher prices.
Those silver dimes now have over $2.00 worth of silver in them, the quarters have roughly $5.27 worth of silver, and you will never find one in circulation. The current nickel has 7.28 cents worth of metal content (mostly copper) in it. At some point they will disappear from circulation.
Indeed, that may not be far off into the future, if the story starts to get around about nickels the way it seems to be.
Financial author Michael Lewis told a story about a huge nickel investor, this week on the television show, The Colbert Report. The must see video is here.
Note: You can track the metal value of nickels and other coins at Coinflation.com.
The pre-1982 pennies have copper in them.
1981
Yep. I see a guy, every Sunday a.m., at our local park with his detector. He probably finds lost rings (softball games) and plenty of coins.
Clearly. Especially in Clevelend. Gotta watch that Claude Cooper cat. He like clappers.
Who says you can’t?
Yeah, you are right. I've been telling my relatives to "execute Plan B" [just like I told them about the silver coins in 1965]. No one is listening. I've just seen a few like-minded posters here, but so far, so good. Gotta get down to the bank today. :-)
Even better:
From mid-1942 to 1945, so-called Wartime composition nickels were created. These coins are 56% copper, 35% silver and 9% manganese.
They are easily identified by the mint mark being above the dome of the Monticello. Silver nickels rock.
One of the bad things about people starting to hoard and melt nickels, is that for quite a long time I've encouraged kids to start collecting nickels if they show any interest at all in coins. That's because until recent years the basic design on the nickel essentially didn't change since the 1920s. That means you find many older coins in circulation than you will quarters, dimes, or pennies. If you watch your change closely you'll see nickels from the 40s are still in circulation. I've basically been recommending they keep their nicklels, compare them to the ones they currently have, and keep the best example of each year and mint. Doens't cost them hardly anything, and yet every once in a while, they'll be rewarded with a new find.
The vast majority of pennies in current circulation are made of zinc.
It's probably silver.
Yes, that is why I specified “copper pennies”. They can be found, but they are not common so you couldn’t get rich by cashing them in for their copper value.
However, zinc prices are over a dollar a pound, too.
P.S. But it takes 181 zinc pennies to make a pound. It isn’t quite there yet, but with Obozo as president, I feel confident that he can drive the value of a dollar down even further.
I keep a Zimbabwean "One Hundred Trillion Dollar" note pinned up in my office as a reminder of where we're headed.
I have told some people in private about it in the past and it almost doesn’t compute when you tell them.
Yeah, you are right. I've been telling my relatives to "execute Plan B" [just like I told them about the silver coins in 1965]. No one is listening. I've just seen a few like-minded posters here, but so far, so good. Gotta get down to the bank today. :-)
I know. Out of the hand full of people I've told; only two have taken it seriously. The rest just didn't get it, or thought I was crazy.
For the time it would take me to examine every nickle and penny in my giant jar to find any real copper or nickel ones, I could go out and shovel two driveways and come out ahead...........
Yea, me too. :(
Phelps-Dodge in the mid nineties was the place to invest. They own the Arizona copper industry and many mines were closed at the time. I’ll bet they have done well in the last 15 years.
I believe they were bought out by Freeport-McMoran some years ago.
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