Will Nickels and Pennies Soon Disappear?

[Ponce]

So with nickels worth slightly more than 5¢ and pennies minted before 1982 worth almost 3¢ due to their copper content, it isn't hard to imagine that they will someday disappear from circulation as the Fed continues to expand its monetary base. Kyle Bass, who heads the hedge fund Hayman Capital Management, has already purchased $1 million worth of nickels according to Business Insider. For any more proof that the 5¢ and certain 1¢ pieces may disappear soon, just consider how many Roosevelt dimes or Washington quarters minted pre-1965 you see around today. Both are composed of 90 percent silver and are worth far more for their metal content than they are as legal tender.

Anyone looking to make a small investment might think twice about throwing nickels or pre-1983 pennies into a jar with the rest of their accumulated change.

http://mises.org/daily/5831/Will-Nickels-and-Pennies-Soon-Disappear

[Silver Rocket Bitches!]

This is already happening evidenced by the change I get back. I'm seeing less and less copper pennies in my change compared to a few years ago.

[horseshoe3]

Has anybody checked percentages lately? A few years ago it was ~28%. I just ordered a sorter and I'll have some data in a few days.

[agnut]

I’ve been seeing about 20-22 % pre 1982 pennies but it takes time to sort them out. The best way I’ve found is to row up 20-40 pennies and go over the dates with a small power magnifier and push the copper pennies forward. I then pile up the separated pennies for later rolling up. The 1982 pennies (a split year) I weigh on a gram scale since the copper ones are heavier. Maybe playing The Ride Of The Valkyries would speed your sorting up. Also good to have around for blasting at unwanted visitors.

It may be a good idea to weigh rolls of pennies before taking them apart; this way you would know how many copper pennies are in the roll. The same would apply to rolls of Kennedy half rolls.

The problem I see in doing this is in taking the unwanted zinc pennies and sandwich Kennedy halves back to the bank. My bank already said that they didn’t want to see the nickel bricks coming back to them after I had sorted them out. But their tune will change as inflation makes the copper and nickel rise farther above face value. So it appears that we are at the beginning of Gresham’s law getting traction and all the “good” coinage disappearing. I think that within a year we won’t be able to get the copper penny or the nickel like today. You may even be surprised to find that you will have some difficulty right now.

I haven’t done the penny bricks lately but have instead been buying $100 bricks of nickels; just bought 2 more bricks from my bank. I was surprised that they had them in the vault. So no separating; I just store the bricks and forget them.

I also have hundreds of dollars of rolled up dimes and quarters that I am thinking of trading for more nickels. It may seem inconsequential to want to do this trade but the dime and quarter metal content value is nowhere near the nickel metal content value and I do not see it getting any better. I believe that it is highly likely that they will either cancel these coins or make new ones from a cheap metal. Maybe a wooden nickel is in our future.

By the way horseshoe, you may get better “good coin” percentages with buying bags of pennies rather than the rolled up bricks. The banks may have them as well as some candy dispenser businesses.

Best wishes,

agnut

[horseshoe3]

This is the machine I ordered. (The $50 kit.)

http://www.jmdaniel.com/products%20&%20prices.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6dYza7E9_c

It's simple and pretty cheap. I thought about building one myself, but this guy has it all figured out and it is not much more from him than the cost of the parts, since I don't have any small gear motors laying around.

My bank is happy to let me sort through them and return the zincs. The president said they almost have to pay to get rid of them so if I take out the zincs, that is less they have to deal with. It's a small town bank and they are real good about things like that. They get a lot more pennies than I expected. I've never deposited a coin in the bank, and I thought everyone was that way. I'll either throw it in a jar or spend it out of my pocket, but never bother with depositing it. They had $173 worth that they had collected in the last few weeks. He said they took in several thousand to the big bank just a little while back.

I plan on buying all the pennies they have and maybe some more from other area banks. The rate ought to be better that way as more old coins come out of jars and drawers and make their way to the local banks.

[Sparky]

I'm actually surprised there are so many pre-1982 around, with all the high volume sorting going on out there. I only pick it out of my existing change as a novelty. I think we had a thread on GIM a few years ago where people reported a yield of about 25-30%. All this sorting later, and the yield still appears to be above 20%.

Nickels are so much easier to sort. ;

BTW, the company that is conducting the R&D to determine the replacement alloy compositions for pennies and nickels was awarded a 2-year contract in August 2011. So it looks like the new composition coins won't be minted until 2013 or or 2014.

[Ponce]

OK, I saw about seven of the videos and specially the ones about weight.......so, I made one out of balsa wood and hot glue... I made my constraction where you would place them as you get them on a roll, not flat, my proto has a wall on each side and you placed the pennies inside...as the pennies goes past the trap door the old copper penies at .31 oz well fall and the new ones at .25 oz will go right over it, all that you have to do after placing the pennies in the canal is to push them foward.....I only tried it with one roll and 26 of them were copper.........I could make a "profecional" one but I only wanted to see if my idea worked........and it does :) ....... the proto is now going in my garage with the rest of my protos.

PS: While applying the hot glue in the kitchen over the stove my proto almost burned down, it did burn about one inch at one end hahahahahahah.