Posted on 02/20/2011 11:34:57 AM PST by blam
Why You Need To Own America's Last Honest Currency, Now
Robert Wenzel
Feburary 18, 2011
I have been writing about the great investment opportunity in nickels for some time. Nickels are an inflation hedge. Nickels are a deflation hedge. And you can buy them at a discount to their metal value. What's not to like?
Gary Gibson does a great job of explaining the dynamics of the nickel:
Every single circulating nickel still has 3.75 grams worth of copper each…along with 1.25 grams of nickel. Copper is currently about $4.46/lb. Nickel is currently about $12.97/lb. So if you do the math, each nickel is worth about 7.3 cents.
120 nickels pieces is worth $6.00 at face value. Those 120 coins contain about a pound of copper and 1/3 pound of nickel. That’s about $8.76. You can’t cash in on this arbitrage directly (anti-smelting laws for pennies and nickels were introduced in late 2006). But the bullion market for cupronickel coins will develop, just as it did for silver US coins. This will happen once the government starts minting five-cent pieces made out of cheaper metals.
To those who doubt this will happen, I refer you to the bags of silver coins trading as bullion for over 20 times their face value. You can easily order such a bag right now by going to any of a number of online bullion dealers. These bags of coins sell right alongside silver bars and rounds.
Right now, the government is subsidizing your copper and nickel purchases…and cutting out the middleman. As much as we complain about government, we ought to stop and offer them a little thanks for this one.
What’s even more interesting is that hoarding nickels provides an imbedded hedge against deflation. That’s because a nickel will always be worth a nickel, at least. So if the dollar strengthens and copper, silver, and gold all get cheaper in dollar terms, you can still spend your nickels just like any other money. Your purchasing power stays the same, maybe even increases.
But if the dollar declines, then the value of the cupronickel in the currency will rise against the face value. Eventually – at two or three times face value – these five-cent pieces will trade as bullion just as 90% silver quarters and dimes did and still do.
Again, there is currently no transaction cost to saving in nickels and no risk from plummeting metal prices. There is literally nothing (in case of deflation) to lose and everything (in case of inflation) to gain.
Your only real problem is storage; a few thousand dollars of nickels takes up a lot of space…and it’s heavy. But people had the same problem with silver when it was cheap. I doubt they’re complaining now. [Silver coins trade at 20 times face value]
Having “too much” cupronickel won’t seem like much of a problem if inflation continues to drive the cupronickel in five-cent pieces far in excess of face value. The cupronickel is America’s last piece of honest currency.
They are comparing nickels to what kind of value they will have, the way junk silver is growing in value today.
You still don’t take the junk silver to the store.
But, you could take your junk silver today to a coin shop and exchange it for fiat, most likely MORE fiat than you paid for it. Take the extra fiat and buy what you need.
It is a hedge. Nothing more.
People who have some junk silver today aren’t selling very much right now. The expectation is that silver will bring MORE fiat dollars in the future, like this summer, next year, and even five years from now.
To a lesser extent, the same will happen to the nickel.
See post #21
Same way they'd enforce a gun confiscation. Records. If you own a lot of gold, someone has a record of the purchase.
It’s illegal to melt down US coinage in the US.
Fill you dump truck up with nickels and drive to a Canadian scrapyard.
So someone knows where you bought your gold and how much you paid. But in the mean time you sold it at a garage sale. How does the government find out who you sold it to?
bttt
120 nickels pieces is worth $6.00 at face value.
Since I cannot trust the math, can I trust the story?
Yes. But it won't matter. If the composition changes the old coins will be driven out of circulation and will become bullion. No need to melt them down.
Get rolls of nickels and sit on them. Right now, the value of the content is higher than face value. It will always have face value. You can go right now and buy a gumball with a mercury dime. The silver content alone though, is worth over $2 now. With the numismatic value, some are worth $25K.
You're proposing a situation where there is a complete breakdown of society. At that point, canned goods, shotgun shells and bicycles will be the highly valued items. For an economic downturn, this is simply a hedge.
120 X .05 = 6.00. What’s the math problem?
Hmmm...
While the return might not be as ‘great’, wouldn’t the same premise hold for about any ‘coin’ as opposed to ‘paper money’ in the end?
Most metals would seem to have at least some intrinsic value over paper, would they not?
Sorry if this is a stupid question...LOL
ADM is better and far easier
However in the SHTF situation there will be plenty of copper in abandoned houses (wires & pipes) and who will need nickel when the industry is deader than a common doornail?
If I were holding a loaf of bread, I'd be willing to exchange it for a good that is just as useful to me as the bread is to you. That could be some other necessity; most likely - water, ammo, gasoline, in that order.
I would accept a coin only when I know that it will be accepted, willingly or under the force of law, anywhere I go. Today both the law and the will help me to pay with US dollars. After SHTF the law will be nonexistent, so only the will remains.
But for anyone to take a common coin he needs to know its true value. How is that determined? In human societies the value of a coin is controlled by availability of such a coin. Only kings made gold coins, for example, and there were very few of those since gold is rare. But nickels ... what will happen to coins in banks' vaults after the SHTF day? They stay there, since nobody at the bank will even think once of taking them elsewhere (and where?) So if you need coins ... you just walk into an abandoned bank and take what you want. Some gangs will even walk into banks that aren't abandoned yet, and make them abandoned. The supply of nickels in banks and stores greatly exceeds anything that you can buy today, and it can be had for free after the SHTF day.
All in all, IMO only necessities will be a good currency, at least for a few years.
Now, nickels are made from materials that cost more than five cents, so, until next year, when the Feds go to a trash metal, it's a good idea to collect nickels.
FWIW, coins used to have a value based on the metal in them. When governments started using manipulation of currency to control economics, it led to situations where, for example, if a dime was still made of silver, the value of ten dimes would be around $20, not the face value of $1. True metal currency reveals how much the government has debased the value of paper currency by printing. That's why they have to change the metal in coins. I don't think any of the government clones thought we'd reach a point where the content of copper in pennies would exceed the value of the coin, and now the copper-nickel value of a nickel exceeds the value of a nickel.
Gold standard —> silver standard —> copper standard —> zinc standard —> aluminum standard? —> steel standard? —> etc...
I encourage everyone to stockpile necessities, first...I already have all I can store/use.
When TSHTF, bring your gold, silver and copper to me...I'll give you some food for it.
There's already some concern that the value of zinc will be a problem in the near future for pennies too.
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