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Economist Peter Schiff is making the case for stockpiling nickels, arguing the metal packed into each five-cent coin is now worth more than its face value and could make a better bet than U.S. Treasuries.
In a recent post on X, Schiff said the copper and nickel contained in modern nickels is worth about 7.76 cents — roughly 55% more than their face value — and suggested people buy them from banks before the U.S. government potentially stops producing them.
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"Buy yours while you can. Much better than Treasuries," Schiff wrote (1).
There is, however, one fairly important catch: Federal law typically prohibits Americans from melting U.S. nickels for their metal value (2).
The math behind Schiff's bet
Schiff's case comes down to what the coins themselves are made of.
According to the U.S. Mint, a nickel weighs 5 grams and contains 25% nickel, with copper making up the remaining 75% (3). That works out to about 1.25 grams of nickel and 3.75 grams of copper in every five-cent coin.
Schiff has made a similar argument about pennies. In another post on X, he said a pre-1982 penny, which contains substantially more copper than newer mintings, had a melt value of 4.46 cents when copper was trading at $6.85 per pound (4). He calculated the metal in newer, mostly zinc pennies at about 1.07 cents.
The cost of producing America's smallest coins has also climbed well above their face value. The U.S. Mint reported that it spent an average of 13.31 cents to produce and distribute each nickel in fiscal year 2025 (5). That marked the 20th straight fiscal year in which the cost of producing the nickel exceeded five cents.
Pennies faced the same problem. The Mint reported an average unit cost of 3.02 cents in fiscal 2025, more than three times the coin's face value.
Are coins really a better bet than bonds?
Legal restrictions make Schiff's strategy far less straightforward in practice (2). Violating the rule can bring fines of up to $10,000 and as much as five years in prison. So someone can't simply buy $100 worth of nickels from a bank, melt them down and pocket the difference in metal value. And that's not to mention that the average person may have a hard time finding the equipment to melt coins.
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