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blkcwbyhat

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Dec 3, 2010
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Another commenter on the survival guy site today,a writer recommend's CRH as an investment for the end of the world! I think that he hasn't read this site,as he has really optimistic numbers about how many you can find per box. Like 10 40's per box,10 dimes per box,so on. I'm sure if anyone listens to him,they will get discouraged quick. One good thing,the blogger is a nickel fanatic,recommends them over anything,so they may not get dumped.
 

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I don't know why people read that site.. a bunch of extremeists if you ask me. Totally unrealistic with those stats.. 10 dime keepers per box? I'll be happy if I get two. 10 40%ers per box.. give me a break.

Let that guy hoard all those nickels.. it doesn't matter.. better him get nickels than the other coins.
 

The only reason I read those sites....They buy my junk!! Got to keep up with the latest greatest gun part they want/need/dream of. I agree,they are a bit extreme,and if they want to lug around boxes of nickels for the end of the world,go for it! What baffles me? He wants to hoard nickels for the melt value? Melt on a nickel is .07 or so.....a penny is .029 or so today. For half the investment,you could have the same melt,almost.And its 95% pure already! Remember,this guy is out there to sell books and stuff,not make sense!
 

blkcwbyhat said:
The only reason I read those sites....They buy my junk!! Got to keep up with the latest greatest gun part they want/need/dream of. I agree,they are a bit extreme,and if they want to lug around boxes of nickels for the end of the world,go for it! What baffles me? He wants to hoard nickels for the melt value? Melt on a nickel is .07 or so.....a penny is .029 or so today. For half the investment,you could have the same melt,almost.And its 95% pure already! Remember,this guy is out there to sell books and stuff,not make sense!

Not really. When it comes to nickels, you don't have to search. A cent must be copper, and 20% - 30% copper seems to be the norm. A nickel is a nickel as far as metal content (wars excluded of course). Assuming you could get melt value, a $100 box of nickels has a melt value of $140, which is a 40% return. I would think that very few boxes of cents have enough copper to return 40%.
 

blkcwbyhat said:
Another commenter on the survival guy site today,a writer recommend's CRH as an investment for the end of the world! I think that he hasn't read this site,as he has really optimistic numbers about how many you can find per box. Like 10 40's per box,10 dimes per box,so on. I'm sure if anyone listens to him,they will get discouraged quick. One good thing,the blogger is a nickel fanatic,recommends them over anything,so they may not get dumped.

I don't think you read it very closely. He said 2 war nickels per box, 2 dimes and 1-2 half dollars.
I don't know about the nickels, but the dimes and half dollars average would be right for some areas of the country.
 

I stand corrected. He claimed 2 per box,not 10.I was just a bit upset that it made it that far,after seeing all the skunk posting's,that that amount still seem's absurd.Making a comment that the percentage is even that high sounds too easy! Granted,nickels need no searching.But if you save them for the end of the world,you better have them stashed in your cave already! I'm not going to carry them thru the woods!
 

ArkieBassMan said:
blkcwbyhat said:
The only reason I read those sites....They buy my junk!! Got to keep up with the latest greatest gun part they want/need/dream of. I agree,they are a bit extreme,and if they want to lug around boxes of nickels for the end of the world,go for it! What baffles me? He wants to hoard nickels for the melt value? Melt on a nickel is .07 or so.....a penny is .029 or so today. For half the investment,you could have the same melt,almost.And its 95% pure already! Remember,this guy is out there to sell books and stuff,not make sense!

Not really. When it comes to nickels, you don't have to search. A cent must be copper, and 20% - 30% copper seems to be the norm. A nickel is a nickel as far as metal content (wars excluded of course). Assuming you could get melt value, a $100 box of nickels has a melt value of $140, which is a 40% return. I would think that very few boxes of cents have enough copper to return 40%.

A $100 box of nickels has 16.5 lbs. of copper and 5.5 lbs. of nickel. That copper and nickel is being purchased at 1 cent per gram.

A $100 box of copper cents has 65.1 lbs of copper (plus some zinc). That copper is being purchased at 0.33 cents per gram which is one third of the cost you pay when hoarding nickels. In other words, you get about 3 times the metal for the exact same price.

Of course, you have to sort copper cents where nickels require no sorting at all. So you have to factor your time into the equation (and your time is a significant cost factor). People like me who do a box of cents every now and then for fun don't typically count our time as a major cost. We are just concerned with building up a large amount of copper over the long term. Since copper cents provide the cheapest source of copper, it makes sense to choose to hoard cents. But if someone wanted to find a way to hoard metals very quickly with little effort, I can see where hoarding nickels would also make sense. But you are paying a pretty hefty premium for them in exchange for not having to sort them.
 

To try and offer another perspective on the whole nickel vs. cents debate...

If I go buy a $100 box of nickels, it costs me 1 hour of my time and the box is worth $140 melt at today's prices. That's an earnings of $40 per hour which is pretty darn good. Of course, I would need to get someone to pay me melt prices for those nickels which isn't going to happen. Still, the same thing applies to the copper cents scenario below so let's run with it.

If I want to get $100 worth of copper cents I need to buy and search through about $400 worth of random cents. I can do a box in a little over an hour, but realistically, I'd be looking at about 40 hours after travel time, breaks, unrolling coins, and taking back rejects. The resulting $100 worth of copper cents would be worth about $280 which is a profit of $140 for 40 hours of work. My earnings would be a paltry $3.50 per hour.

So although you pay a hefty premium to buy nickels when you consider the difference in actual metal content per face value paid, that premium may be well worth it when you factor in your time. Those who have invested in a Ryedale for sorting their cents would see much higher earnings per hour over the long term.
 

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