Mr. Rawles,
I took your advice and, this week, bought a large quantity of [U.S. Five cent piece] nickels for investment. I thought your readers might want to know how surprisingly easy it was. I only had to contact two branches (in a major East coast city) of a large US bank. I have had an account with that bank for a long time, but I had no personal relationships there. The nice lady at the first branch said that she was happy to help but, because the branch had a small vault, she could only get me three boxes ($300) at a time. So I called a second branch, where another nice lady placed a special order for me for 70 boxes ($7,000 and about 1,500 pounds). They arrived in a couple days and bank employees helped me load my vehicle. There were no charges [above face value] and they would not even accept a tip.
By the way, several [bank] employees were curious about my large order. (One of them asked if I was a poker player.) Although I have read advice about keeping explanations vague (or even providing misleading explanations), I saw no reason not to tell the truth. I thought the information might even motivate some of them to do the same thing. So I simply explained that there is more than 7 cents worth of nickel and copper in each coin, that I thought that the government would change the content for new coins, and that the old ones would increase in value.
I enjoy your blog. God bless and please keep up the good work. – M. on the East Coast
JWR Replies: Congratulations on being a proactive investor! U.S. Nickels already have about 7.3 cents in base metal (“melt”) value. That represents a substantial gain over the face value, without even waiting for an upswing in the base metals prices. In a few years you will probably be very glad that you hedged against inflation by buying Nickels. It has long been said that “silver is the working man’s gold.” By extension, Nickels are the poor man’s silver.
But your nickels now, folks, before you have to sort them. (Once a new, debased Nickel is introduced and begins circulating side-by-side with the Nickels of the current composition, then the drudgery of coin sorting will begin.)