First the Penny, Now the Nickel

You've probably heard that the U.S. penny costs more to make than the value of the coin. It's worth one cent (by definition), but the value of the metal that makes it is worth more than one cent. This has led many people to call for the retirement of the penny.

Well, now the nickel has the same problem. This from Money magazine:

Thanks to a recent spurt in nickel prices, the metal in a five-cent coin (25% nickel and 75% copper) is now worth more than the coin itself.

The actual numbers: the nickel is worth five cents (of course) but the value of the metal in each one is 6.4 cents. That's a 28% premium. So, if I purchased $1 million of nickels, melted them down, then sold the metal, I'd earn a quick $280,000. Not bad, huh? Maybe I should add this suggestion to my $10k challenge! ;-)

But alas, it's illegal to do this. The U.S. Mint has issued rules that do not allow the melting of coins.

Dang. There goes my plan for an early retirement! :-)

Comments

[SteveK]

I guess FiveCentNickel is going to have to change his website to SixPointFourCentNickel. :-)