"Steve" wrote in message
...

On Wed, 20 Aug 2008 20:06:43 -0700, "Capt. JG"
wrote:

"Steve" wrote in message
. ..

On Wed, 20 Aug 2008 09:13:21 -0700, "Capt. JG"
wrote:

"Steve" wrote in message
m...

On Tue, 19 Aug 2008 20:49:24 -0400, "Glenn Ashmore"
wrote:

I just KNEW my kid's Hot Wheels collection would be worth something
some
day. :-) Maybe I should pull all that pot metal kitch out of the
yard
sale.

Seriously, if the price of zinc rises to much there will be zinc
castings,
broken souvenir beer mugs and old kitchen utensils appearing out of
the
wood
work. There is an amazing amount of zinc sitting in peoples' closets
and
junk boxes.

Save your pennies. They're almost all zinc. The older, copper
pennies (before 1982, 95% copper, 5% zinc) are worth 2.2 cents now in
copper. A nickle is worth 5.1 cents in the metal value (75% copper,
25% nickle). But a current penny (97.5% zinc, 5% copper) is worth
only 1/2 a penny in metal value. That should go up if we really start
running out of zinc.

For a list of US coin's melt value vs. purchasing power see:

http://www.coinflation.com/

Steve


Yeah, unfortunately, it's big time illegal to melt down pennies. I think
there's some guy who's hording them in the hope that'll change (no pun
intended).

It may or may not be illegal but I can gaurantee you it'll happen if
it's worth it. No kid ever got locked up for putting pennies on
railroad tracks. And I'm really wondering how it's legal for all
those tourist places like Disney, etc., to operate press machines
where you put in 2 quarters and a penny and you get back your penny
stamped into a souvenir medalion. That's defacing a penny just like
if you melted it down.

The answer is that it's not illegal to melt or squash coins. If you
read the law, it says that the alteration, defacing, etc., of coins
has to be done fraudulently for it to be illegal. Melting it down is
not fraud.

Steve


Nope... it's illegal...

http://coins.about.com/b/2006/12/14/...nd-nickels.htm
http://money.cnn.com/2006/12/14/news...ney_topstories

Nope, legal. At least in the US. Your sources are misinformed.
Believe me, there's a lot of that on the intenet.

http://www.coinflation.com/is_it_ill...elt_coins.html
http://boards.collectors-society.com...te_id/1#import

And directly from the source, ths US Treasury and US Mint:
http://www.ustreas.gov/education/faq...aits.shtml#q13

Quoting from the US Treasury site:

Question: Is it illegal to damage or deface coins?

Answer: Section 331 of Title 18 of the United States code provides
criminal penalties for anyone who "fraudulently alters, defaces,
mutilates impairs, diminishes, falsifies, scales, or lightens any of
the coins coined at the Mints of the United States." This statute
means that you may be violating the law if you change the appearance
of the coin and fraudulently represent it to be other than the altered
coin that it is. As a matter of policy, the U.S. Mint does not promote
coloring, plating or altering U.S. coinage: however, there are no
sanctions against such activity absent fraudulent intent.

This means that you can melt down all the US coins you want as long as
you don't try and pass off the melted down coin as a different coin.

Steve


Steve, the rule was implemented. CNN got it right. It's specifically about
melting them down, which was added to the rules, but feel free to hoard
them.



--
"j" ganz @@
www.sailnow.com