We all know about Gold, Silver and Platinum. What about the Base metals like Copper, Zinc, and Nickel? I weighed some pre-1982 pennies and found that it takes 199 pre 1982 pennies to make 1 pound. OK, OK, lets just say that it takes $2 worth of pre 1982 pennies to make a pound. The price today for Copper is $4.40 a pound. That means that a pre 1982 penny is worth a bit more than double its face value. I can't tell you exactly when I started saving pre 1982 pennies but I've got a bunch of them. Now, in 1982, they made some pennies out of Copper and some out of Zinc. Hmmm... How do you tell which is which. Well, I weigh all my 1982 pennies and if they weigh 48 or 49 grains, they are Copper. If they weigh 38 or 39 grains they are Zinc. What about Nickels? Well Nickels have some Nickel in them but they are mostly Copper. Do I save Nickels? Yep, but not for the Nickel content but for the Copper content. Now, what do I do with all the crappy other coins? I save them in a different place and I don't bother to mark the rolls as Copper or Nickel. Why would I save those crappy other coins? Well, when the SHTF and the paper money becomes worthless, the crappy coins will at least have some value as Base Metals and people will be glad to take them for payment. Hmmm... aren't they going to be heavy? Yep, but I like to eat and lugging those heavy rolls of coins around will be worth the effort. Now here's something that most people don't know. Iron and Nickel can be picked up by a magnet. So.... Well, the older Canadian coins were made out of more Nickel and can be picked up by a magnet. If you have a pile of Canadian Nickels, you can sort them with a Magnet. The pure Nickels are worth more than the new Canadian Nickels. The Canadian's also did what we did to their pennies. The old ones are Copper and the new one's aren't. Just weigh them and you can sort them out also. The whole point is, don't overlook the value in Base Metals when it all goes wrong.
