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A quick search for "nickel melt value" would have told you that $0.041 is based on the 25% nickel content.

Err, No!

1. Calculate 75% copper value :
        (3.1026 Ã-- .00220462262 Ã-- 5.00 Ã-- .75) = $0.0256498
2. Calculate 25% nickel value :
        (5.5036 Ã-- .00220462262 Ã-- 5.00 Ã-- .25) = $0.0151665
3. Add the two together :
        $0.0256498 + $0.0151665 = $0.0408163

Apparently, you either can't use Google or cannot read. Which is it?

Very interesting

Copper was selling for $3.65/lb at its peak, years ago. It's now down to $2.20/lb. Further, that price is for "Grade A" pure copper. The 95% copper found in pre-1982 cents would get you less, even if it were legal to melt them down.

Coinflation reports current "melt prices" (the amount you could be paid for metal content, assuming you could separate the component metals for free) of current and obsolete US coins. For US clad coins to be "worth" more than face value, the dollar price of their nickel and copper would have to rise to almost nine times its current value.

Silver coins are another story. They actually trade at more than the value of the silver they contain -- their "melt price" is just over 11 times face value, but you can sell them in quantity for more than 12x, and you'll generally need to pay more than that to buy them.

I was comparing face value to melt value, not production cost to melt value.

You have no idea what you're talking about. The base metal melt value of the currently produced penny is $0.004775984212837.

True, but when metal prices were high a few years ago, low denomination coins might have been in the zone. Even at todays prices, the 1946-2014 Nickel is worth 58.74% of its face value, and the 1982-2014 Cent is worth 47.75 of its face value in metal (source this site ). So if metal prices doubled, they'd be negative or close to it.

I'm too lazy to look up Canadian values, but US coin values make this a profitable concept.

According to these guys, a nickel's metal value is just over 90% of the face value. So if you've got a dollar worth of nickels, you've got about $0.91 worth of nickel.

Compare this with (old copper based) pennies, where the metal value is more than double the face value at 215%.

This is legit science. Do not argue!

Complete horseshit.

The USD is backed by copper, nickle, and zinc.

If you cashed all your cash out of the banks and into Nickles in 1960 then sold them for melt value today, you'd be sitting on nearly the same amount of money you had in 1960 because the value of the USD has not changed much at all over the past 50 years and neither has the value of most metals. Everything has gone up in price because of increased demand due to the population doubling in size despite resource generation remaining relatively constant. Gold and silver prices are super inflated due to speculation, but compared to the historical value of any stable metal price to that metal's present price, the USD has a definitively stable value.

Ignore the above statements if your opinions are easily set by mainstream news media and immune to rational inquiry.

Convenient that you picked a Quarter and not a Penny. If you want to know the real value of the dollar compared to the 1960's you must compare to a metal of stable value, not one that fluctuates wildly on pure speculation. Copper is the metal you should compare with as it's value has been relatively constant for a century, rising and falling in near lockstep with new building construction rates.

A 1960 penny was 95% copper.

$1.25 worth of 1960 pennies is today worth $2.77. [Your source]

Your "98% of it's value" nonsense is horseshit.

Can you please explain the $1.25 -> $25 calculation. Do you have a source for this information?

It's just arithmetic, but perhaps I can explain how to do the calculation. In 1964 a quarter was 90% silver. It weighed 6.25 grams, so 5.625 grams of pure silver. data source.

Five quarters ($1.25) was therefore 28.125 grams of silver. A troy ounce is 31.1 grams, so minimum wage was almost exactly 0.9oz of silver.

The 52-week range of silver has been between $21.12 and $35.30 - currencies are fluctuating wildly with the current financial crisis, but even within that chaos, an equivalent wage would be between $19.00 and $31.78 for the past year. $25.39 is the middle of that range. We also know that the market price is manipulated (like LIBOR and other benchmark rates) since paper funds can't fill their physical orders, so one can consider that price to be depressed to some degree (how much is unknown because it's not a real market).

So, how many of the current financial problems (cost of education, cost of health care, cost of gas, cost of food, etc.) would really be problems if the wages had held steady? The obvious explanation is that those prices are all rising together with monetary inflation and it's just wages that are falling relative to it, causing the economic suffering.

If you follow the 20th Century wage chart, from the beginning to 1971, when the US went off the real-money system, wages rose (in terms of real money) right in step with productivity improvements. Since 1971, productivity has continued to increase steadily, but wages have been flat (the difference goes to the financial sector, on net). If the slope of that chart is extended out to present day, it intersects at about $29/hr, fairly consistent with the real-money methodology. $29 has been the price of 0.9oz of silver in the past year, so with the caveat that prices bounce around from day to day and week to week, on an smoothed basis it's right in the zone of where we should be, or a bit lower.

People aren't taught in school that the Federal Reserve is a private corporation owned by its member banks, with its board and president composed of representatives of the biggest multinational banks. Even though its charge is to protect the value of the US Dollar, the USD has lost 98% of its value over the past century (this year marked 100 years of Federal Reserve control of the currency). However, if anybody suggests that the Fed's policies, which have fabulously enriched the financial sector, led to this currency failure for any reason other than pure chance or bad luck, then they are labelled a 'conspiracy nut'. To avoid being called names, pure faith in their virtue is required and any skepticism must be jettisoned.

Which brings us back to bitcoin...

The difference between a dollar and a bitcoin is that a dollar can be converted into coins like Nickles, which at current market value are worth about 4.5 cents. This literally means the dollar's value is backed by metal worth 90% of face value.

What is a bitcoin backed by? Faith?

You can get gas for $1.99 a gallon? Do tell.

I guess you don't know what the word intrinsic means.

A U.S. Federal Reserve note has about $0.04 of intrinsic value, whether its face value be $1 or $100. Here are the intrinsic values for U.S. coinage---again, nowhere close to their face value.

No, The the 90% silver quarter is worth a a little over $5, that's what I had in mind.

Adjusted for inflation based on government CPI, the same CPI they use to tell you there is just under 4% inflation today (though Nixon started wage and price controls at 4%, not that it is the right thing to do, it's wrong, like all things that governments do).

In real money price of gas has fell. The cheapest gas USA ever saw at the pump was 20 cents.

If you take a silver dime and melt it, you'll get $2.53 worth of US dollars.

I'd rather just buy sheets of nickel or other metals with my debit card if I feel the need for it, which I don't.

You missed the point. The bullion value of a nickel is slightly higher than its face value. Thus, if you invest in copper and nickel by hoarding nickel coins, the government is essentially selling you the metals at below their market value. (Despite the name, a nickel is 75% copper, and has been since 1866 when they were first minted.)

http://coinflation.com/

Bad money drives out the good.

Pocket change is only annoying if it's worthless metal. With real metal coins you could buy a weeks worth of groceries with a gold coin the size of a dime.

If we still had real metal coins this is what their value would be today.

Copper Penny 2.5 cents
Silver/Copper Nickel $1.88
Silver Dime $2.42
Silver Quarter $6.05
Silver Half Dollar $12.10
Silver Dollar $25.90
$1 Gold Coin $83.74
$2.50 Gold Coin $209
$5 Gold Coin $418
$10 Gold Coin $836
$20 Gold Coin $1675

From http://www.coinflation.com/

Whoa there, the current melt value is about $6.08

That's quite high, but it's not anywhere near $30

http://www.coinflation.com/coins/1932-1964-Silver-Washington-Quarter-Value.html

Normally I put it differently.

This is price of gas since 1919 till now, lowest number there is 17 cents / gallon.

Silver dime minted between 1946-1964 is worth almost $3 (2.995USD)

Here is price of gas in Washington DC - it's between 3.59 and 3.65USD/gallon.

OK, let's say it's $3.65/gallon and $3 for the dime to round this thing.

So for 1 silver dime you can get .82 gallons of gas. Or one full gallon would cost 1 dime + 18% of another dime :), so maybe 12 cents rounded.

That's cheapest gas since 1919 in terms of silver. Not the same as to say it's cheapest oil in gold, but I should have said what I normally say - cheapest gas ever in real money.

Yeah, interesting story, is not it?

Methinks that somewhere along the line a black/gray market will emerge where goods and services can be bought for eagles and bullion.

I am wondering if there is a black market equivalent of Rule 34? ;) If not, can I be credited for that meme: "If someone think that there could be a black market in something, it's pretty probably that it already exists!".

Though, I am sure that it is happening right now, maybe more in silver coins than in gold for smaller transactions, even pre-60s quarters and such, taken at their weight, not face denomination.

Another related fascinating story: apparently even current US nickels (unlike all other regular coins!) are about 6 cents in base metal value, and it used to be way more than that within last five years (see bottom charts here: http://www.coinflation.com/coins/1946-2007-Jefferson-Nickel-Value.html).

And no, in case you ask, I am not in the habit of hoarding nickels! :)

Paul B.

+1 interesting.

On a related note, after I posted this I was thinking about it; I checked this out, and it turns out that the copper in a pre-1982 penny is actually worth about $0.02.

It is worth selling your nickels and pennies - or at least melting down pre-1982 (and some 1982) pennies and all recent nickels. Unfortunately the government figured this out and made it illegal.

I got a 1964 silver quarter in change the other day - it's worth $3.32 today.

BTW, you can tell a 95% copper penny from a 97.5% zinc one by carefully listening to the sound it makes after being dropped onto a hard surface. The 95% copper one 'rings out', whereas the zinc one goes 'thud'.

It is worth selling your nickels and pennies - or at least melting down pre-1982 (and some 1982) pennies and all recent nickels. Unfortunately the government figured this out and made it illegal.

I got a 1964 silver quarter in change the other day - it's worth $3.32 today.

BTW, you can tell a 95% copper penny from a 97.5% zinc one by carefully listening to the sound it makes after being dropped onto a hard surface. The 95% copper one 'rings out', whereas the zinc one goes 'thud'.

Agreed. The real counterfeiting occurred in 1964 when silver was no longer used in quarters and dimes, and in 1971 when we went off the gold standard. Here is the proof: the value of a gallon of gasoline in 1964 was 27 cents. Today the average price of gas is $2.86. The melt value of a 90% silver quarter from 1964 is worth $3.27 in today's dollars. If we kept using 90% silver quarters today, we would be able to purchase more than gallon of gasoline with it. Our coins and paper money have become extremely devalued.

All nickels minted after 1964 are made out of a copper-nickel clad (alloy). The metal value of a nickel might be worth more than 5 cents, but I doubt it.

You can always check here, but the upshot is that you would be correct to doubt it.

So now if I pay a debt to a store in quarters I only have to pay sales tax on 13% of the face value as the quarter melt value is only 3.25c?

http://www.coinflation.com/coins/1965-2007-Washington-Quarter-Value.html

Not if he can find someone willing to buy it for more than $3.00 or if he melts that 1982 penny down to sell the copper.

However, the dime and the quarter are both 92% copper. The nickel has 75% copper and 25% nickel, which means that back in the beginning of 2008 when copper and nickel were both significantly more expensive, it would have had a melt value of more than 5 cents. Now it's about 2 and a half. Here's an interesting website that tracks the melt value of US coins:

http://www.coinflation.com/

There is a difference between how much it costs something to manufacture and how much its metals are worth. Right now the metal value of lincoln cents is around .561 cents. less than the value of a penny. You can use base metal coin calculator which tends to have current prices.

Pre-1982 pennies (1 cent) weigh 3.11 gm and are 95% copper

currently worth and worth 2.4 cents each for the copper (not 5 cents)

post-1982 cents are copper plated zinc and only contain 2.5% copper and

are currently worth 0.8 cents for the copper (much less than 5 cents)

Copper would have to reach $8/Lb for the per-1982 cent to be worth a nickel.

http://www.coinflation.com/

It is for nickels, but not dimes, quarters, or those dollar coins. Pennies were right on the edge you can get up to date values from http://www.coinflation.com./ Pre 1982 pennies (copper)are now worth almost $0.03 these days. Oh and the GBP is worth about $2.

I may have posted this link before, but since there are a few posts which misstate the current metal value of US coinage, here it is again: http://www.coinflation.com/ . IMO, we should lop off the last digit, and use nothing lower than a dime in cash coinage. Aside from simplifying the change, it would create a new burst of Y2K-like program rewrites for many financial systems in the US, boosting IT spend and having the side benefit of making people think about what it is that our money really represents (that is, a means of exchange and not a store of value).

For current prices of base metals on the open market, check out Kitco metals. For the relation to US currency, see coinflation.

* Most 1943 pennies were zinc-coated steel, due to the need for copper in the war effort.

Check out Coinflation... they've been tracking this stuff for quite awhile now. You'll notice that the figures cited on the front page don't match what everyone has been cutting and pasting on here... that reflects the difference between replacement cost for the Mint, and raw melt value of the metal in the coin.

Current melt value and composition of US coins can be found here: http://www.coinflation.com/

If you look back at the older silver coins, you can see how the amount of silver used to be proportional to coin value.