Monday, February 28, 2011

An NYT Reporter Discovers the Investment Value of Nickels (Sort of)

NYT economics reporter Catherine Rampell thumbs:
a nickel is actually worth 7 cents, based on metal content http://www.coinflation.com/ so they're a good investment? http://bit.ly/gzcWwU
Although she appears a bit unsure of the entire thing, by adding a question mark, maybe she is just waiting for Paul Krugman to endorse the investment.

Not surprisingly, EPJ was ahead of NYT on this. See here and here. At the EPJ Daily Alert, I discussed the idea last year.

BTW, the investment is not only, as Rampell's link implies, for the poor. One hedge fund manager ordered 20 million nickels from his bank.

Nickels will probably disappear from circulation before NYT takes the question mark away from the investment. Do yourself a favor and tuck away a few, before they go the way of the silver pre-1965 dime (Now worth over $2.45) and the silver pre-1965 quarter (Now worth over $6.10)

6 comments:

  1. thanks for posting this again, i ignored the other article you had on nickles(like i do for all precious metal articles) because I make less then 10k a year so there is no way in hell im going to ever buy gold. So because of that I missed the part saying it was about actual nickels as in the 5 cent nickel. Now that i know that, im going to start buying and saving my nickels.

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  2. Well, the U.S. doesn't use nickel quite like it used to in WWII. So you certainly want to keep after pre-1965 coins, and 'war nickels', made from 1942-45. War nickels had their nickel content replaced with silver because the U.S. needed the nickel for armor plating. These days, it's simply a commodity that is rising along with everything else.

    However, despite being a low-grade metal . . . Gresham's law still applies. Bad money drives out good money. All other remaining U.S. currency is plated zinc. So stash nickels while you can. FYI, your local bank may already be limiting how many rolls you can pick up.

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  3. Mr. Wenzel,

    I love you to pieces but you're really overdoing it with the verb "thumb". On top of that, I don't even think you're using it correctly.

    http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/thumb

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  4. "Thumb" is standard for mobile-based communication since most typing on cell phone devices happen with the thumbs.

    Gotta keep up with culture, Anon.

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  5. I thought that the dimes and quarters with silver were pre-1973 coins. How am I to know for sure?

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  6. Any US coin pre-1965 is 90% silver (besides pennies and nickels)

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