deep value

I Bought $250,000 Worth of Physical Nickels No, that’s not a typo. That’s 5 million coins. 55,000 pounds of American metal stacked in boxes from a local bank vault — an asset the government literally can’t print anymore. Most people would call it insane. But let me explain the thesis. Each U.S. nickel is made of 75% copper and 25% nickel, weighing 5 grams. That means every $1 million in face value equals roughly 100,000 pounds of metal. At current metal spot prices, the melt value of a modern nickel sits around $0.043 – $0.047, depending on commodity fluctuations — or roughly 90–95% of face value. That means the U.S. Mint loses money on every coin it produces. They’ve tried to change the composition for years, but Congress hasn’t approved it yet. So what happens when they finally do? The old “real” nickels become the last batch of government-issued coins containing significant industrial metal. When that happens, they’ll vanish from circulation overnight — just like the 90% silver coins did after 1964. Those who held them saw a 10–15× nominal gain over the following decades as melt value outpaced inflation. My $250,000 position, therefore, isn’t a “trade.” It’s an asymmetrical bet that the U.S. Mint will eventually debase the coinage again, that metal scarcity and inflation will continue to erode the dollar, and that a bag of nickels will one day be worth more dead than alive. Worst case? I still have $250,000 in legal-tender coins backed by the full faith and credit of the United States. Best case? The melt value doubles, triples, or gets banned outright — which would make the existing supply finite and far more valuable to collectors and contrarians alike. It’s not crypto, it’s not stocks, it’s not even silver. It’s 5 million tiny claims on an industrial commodity the government accidentally subsidizes. That’s deep value. That’s the Nickel Standard.