so when the SHTF is someone supposed to haul a truck load of nickels to the store to see if they will take it for a loaf of bread. Sorry, I don’t get this.
Allow an anecdotal example from Weimar Germany's hyperinflation. An old preacher had supposedly tossed his collection-plate copper Pfennigs (sp?) into an unused bathtub. Over the decades he had collected thousands and thousands of the German copper pennies.
During a period when a wheelbarrow load of paper Marks could not purchase a loaf of bread, he could still buy bread with handful of real copper coins. They still had real, intrinsic value.
No, the way I see it, if nasty deflation comes that nickel might buy that loaf of bread; if a nasty inflation comes you can sell that nickel for near intrinsic value (like silver coins today) and buy that loaf of bread with the proceeds.
While a tad bulky, $1,000 in nickels at 10x face returns $5,000. Not a bad return in exchange for tying up some bucks for a year or so.
Read the article again and think about it.
You may not need but a couple nickels to buy the $25.00 loaf of bread.
A $2.00 roll of nickels coulds be worth ,(I don't know), a hundred dollars then.
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.
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.