It has been argued by those in the prep­per and sur­vival com­mu­ni­ty that because nick­els (pre-2011ish) con­tain 75% cop­per and 25 % nick­el will appre­ci­ate with infla­tion and/or pre­cious met­als.  It’s been said that the price of the nick­el will go up in a post eco­nom­ic col­lapse sce­nario.  My own pre­lim­i­nary research says this is debat­able.  I’m no econ­o­mist, nei­ther am I a finan­cial advi­sor, so I’ll try to spare you much hyper­bole.

So, what is a U.S. issue nick­el worth today?  As of June 28th, 2013, the Web­site, Coin­fla­tion said that a 1946 — 2013 nick­el melt val­ue is actu­al­ly worth $0.0422916, almost .$0068 cents less than the actu­al $.05 it is sup­posed to be worth.  Here is how they derived at that num­ber:

1. Cal­cu­late 75% cop­per val­ue :  (3.0519 × .00220462262 × 5.00 × .75) = $0.0252307

2. Cal­cu­late 25% nick­el val­ue : (6.1911 × .00220462262 × 5.00 × .25) = $0.0170609

3. Add the two togeth­er : $0.0252307 + $0.0170609 = $0.0422916

Here is is how they came to the num­bers in the for­mu­la:

• $3.0519 = cop­per price / pound on Jun 28, 2013.
• .75 = cop­per %
• $6.1911 = nick­el price / pound on Jun 28, 2013.
• .25 = nick­el %
• 5.00 = total weight in grams
• .00220462262 = pound/gram con­ver­sion fac­tor (see note direct­ly below)

Of course, the val­ue is derived from the day’s spot price for both nick­el and cop­per.  If either of those met­als spike on the com­modi­ties mar­ket, then the val­ue of the nick­el increas­es, but if the val­ue of the met­als goes down so does the val­ue of the nick­el.  Not tak­en into con­sid­er­a­tion (arguably) is the street val­ue the pub­lic places on what a nick­el is real­ly worth.  Just like the pen­ny, I feel the nick­el is one of those coins great­ly invis­i­ble to the aver­age sheep on the street.  Is that an advan­tage for the prep­per type?  Would stock­pil­ing ammo box­es of nick­els be advan­ta­geous or just clut­ter up the prep­pers space already?

I already buy sil­ver, and the ‘experts’ have been say­ing sil­ver is going to spike, con­tin­ue to rise, etc. as the econ­o­my does bet­ter or does worse.  As of this week I saw the spot price of sil­ver at $19.66 per troy ounce at spot price as of June 28th.  It is one of the low­est clos­ing prices it has been in a LONG time.  I’m under­wa­ter on much of my sil­ver, and if I con­tin­ue to ‘watch’ the pric­ing, I am going to be a bit upset.  But if I con­tin­ue to buy at this price, at some point it will aver­age out and low­er my over­all costs because I am accu­mu­lat­ing more.  It’s hard to say what to do.

Let me know what you think.  I’m debat­ing whether this is a smart task to begin hoard­ing nick­els and under­tak­ing along with my oth­er prepa­ra­tions.