Americans Are Now Hoarding Coins
A nickel might not seem to be worth much. But to coin collectors and hoarders, it can be worth more than 5 cents.
During all of this, of course — of course — some Americans found a roundabout way to make some money: hoarding nickels. Yes, the coin is worth just five cents, but the metal it contains — 75 percent copper and 25 percent nickel — has long been worth more than that. According to Coinflation.com, a website that tracks the value of the metals in coins, the “melt value” of a single nickel currently stands at eight cents.
Collecting coins is not a new thing.
Scooping up coins for their metal is, in fact, an age-old tradition. Five-cent nickels were first minted in the 1860s because Americans were squirreling away gold and silver coins during the Civil War. Over the past decade or so, a small but spirited subculture of prepper types has been hoarding nickels as a contingency plan against inflation Armageddon.
Here’s a Youtube video explaining the new hobby:
