RCM melting coins made of 100% nickel

sinin1

most of the Canadian nickels from 1922 to 1981 are 100% nickel

the value of nickel has risen to around 14 cents for a 5 cent piece


how many are going to be melted and how long will it take to find the new 'rarities?' caused by the mint melting (they say it is illegal for anyone else to melt them)

ajaan

I would think there are A LOT of these in the hands of collectors in Canada and the US, especially the pre-1953 dates. It is the latter date coins that may become more scarce if there is a big meltdown but now knowing the mint is doing this, I think people will start saving the pre-1982 5c coins.

cladking

It's funny really, this sort of thing has been happening all over the world for decades. Coins
go into circulation, are totally ignored and then are withdrawn and destroyed. This is happen-
ing because there has been general agreement that modern coins are junk made in massive
numbers and will never even be collected much less valuable. There are numerous coins that
are simply unavailable in unc and difficult even in circulated grades but for the main part people
still don't take notice.

In the case of Canadian nickels, the old ones are well represented in collections from unc to VG.
It was the late-'60's before people became less interested in the coinage and sought the "old"
coins in circulation exclusively. Old is in quotes simply because the coins they sought aren't near-
ly as old as the coins they are still ignoring from the late-'60's.

Canadian nickels aren't ever going to become rare simply because they were not only made in
huge numbers but they are a very tiny amount of money now so many people aren't going to turn
them in. The government is using only a couple collection points so it will take a very long time for
them all to funnel to these points. But the pieces that survive this will be a representative cross
section of what's in circulation. People won't be saving back the nicer coins. The nice coins will
end up being destroyed in the same proportion as the beat up, worn out, badly made '69 nickel
as the nice AU's. This will mean that attractive coins of some dates could be surprisingly tough in
the future. It certainly has happened in many other places so these coins probably will be no ex-
ception.

There have been some stunning price gains for choice Canadian circulating issues in the last sever-
al months. This was probably spurred by the growing realization that these are going to be a thing
of the past. These coins have always been quite scarce but no one seemed to notice.

shirohniichan

This is happening because there has been general agreement that modern coins are junk made in massive numbers and will never even be collected much less valuable.

I'm glad to see you've finally seen the light about modern crap.





















A few years back I was putting together a set of circulation-strike Canadian dollars. I found that even the 1968 to 1970 dollars advertised as business strikes in UNC were really PL or specimen strikes. Most of the ones I found in business strikes were pretty ugly, but that is also because there aren't a whole lot of them in coin shops in Southern California. I don't know how much better luck I'd have up in Canuckland, either.

cladking

<< <i>This is happening because there has been general agreement that modern coins are junk made in massive numbers and will never even be collected much less valuable.

I'm glad to see you've finally seen the light about modern crap.





A few years back I was putting together a set of circulation-strike Canadian dollars. I found that even the 1968 to 1970 dollars advertised as business strikes in UNC were really PL or specimen strikes. Most of the ones I found in business strikes were pretty ugly, but that is also because there aren't a whole lot of them in coin shops in Southern California. I don't know how much better luck I'd have up in Canuckland, either. >>




I checked out a few shops in Toronto back in '73/ '74 (younge street). They maintained a pretty
good assortment of Canadian coins and had lots of the old nickels going back to '22, and even a
junk box of them for a quarter each. They had a lot of US and a little depth in this area as well.

They had a few of the recent sets around but no evidence of anything modern. This is like all the
price lists I've seen from all over the world. (most in English) There just isn't and hasn't been a lot
of interest in modern junk.

There have always been exceptions and it's not wise to assume everything you don't see commonly
is rare. There was old Joe Lucas of Ohio (nicknamed Unc Junk) who died back in the early '80's and
had massive amounts of unc moderns from everywhere. There are a few dealers who have tried to
service these markets for many years including some who sell US moderns. But mostly selling these
coins is always far more difficult than finding them and if you watch their lists you'll see that many coins
never appear on them. Also there is a more fundamental problem with the supply of these coins; if
people don't collect them then there's no continuity in supply. Even after the dealers sell them some
of this material will end up back in circulation or degraded by "other uses" or lack of care. If you watch
the coins that come into coin shops you just won't see moderns very often except for the mint products
which can be much scarcer than they seem due to attrition and don't include very large numbers of the
coins issued in the last 56 years. You can't just go find any date Fijian mint set to form a collection be-
cause many dates were not issued. Even those that were had mintages of only a few thousand so can
be very elusive. Since collectors didn't form sets of these it leaves only the degraded coins circulating in
Fiji and a few carried home by tourists which tend to find their way into poundage. Attrition is high.

I could have done much better in the Canadian coins than I did but I had the sense that these were rel-
atively common because so many US collectors save Canadian but it's starting to look like I was wrong
and these coins are nearly as tough as most other moderns, perhaps tougher for some dates. Like so
many coins these are widely available up till 1968 and then they get much less available.

It won't be too many years until the modern sets being formed now start coming into coin shops, but a
lot of the most desirable coins are not going to be included in most of these sets. There will always be
a steady supply of older coins coming back on the market but it will be generations before any real sup-
ply of moderns come available this way. And even when they do, how many unc 1975 Fijian half dollars
will there be if only dozens were ever saved? This is a stunning coin and it's a shame that it has attract-
ed so little interest over the years. There are many coins that are just as tough that were destroyed by
the issuer. Not only won't there be uncs but there won't be much of any other grade either. Even in US
coins there are coins that didn't appear in mint sets and weren't saved in rolls. There are varieties which
don't exist in unc because people weren't looking. Some of these are scarce, some otherwise common.

Yeah, it was tough but I quit bashing moderns. In my case it was back in 1972 and my biggest regret is
that I didn't start collecting these sooner and with more numismatic focus. I should have been trying to
assemble sets and finding the rare varieties much more and seeking the high grades much less. Live and
learn. Nobody gets a do-over or it would always be groundhogs day.

cladking

I should mention that they are melting just about all their old coins
not just the 100% nickel. Anything they can pull out of circulation and
replace with a cheaper material is being withdrawn.