Melting old pennies

[california_jobcase]

Nickel. It’s spelled nickel.

Carry on.

[Schnitte]

@SpyOne

I saw a financial guru of some sort, I believe he was a guest on the Daily Show, and he was saying that he recommended investing in copper US coins and nickles for their metal value, because buying their metal content at face value is a bargain. He stressed that actually melting them was illegal, but hoarding them is not.
He said that he had gone to his bank to try and get $100,000 in nickles, and they said he had to get them from the Federal Reserve, and the Federal Reserve had asked why he wanted $100,000 in nickles. He said he had replied, “I just really like nickles,” and this had satisfied them, so now he owns $100,000 in nickles.

So now he has two million nickels lying around that he can legally hoard, but not legally melt down. Basically, he can’t do anything with it - and while he’s hoarding them, the storage costs (and the foregone interes or dividends that he could have gained investing the $100,000 in a more conventional manner) are ongoing costs. What’s the point? Melting them down eventually anway, even though it’s illegal? Waiting for the ban on defacing currency to be lifted? Doesn’t sound like a very solid business model to me.