On Thu, 21 Aug 2008 08:03:10 -0700, "Capt. JG"
wrote:

"Steve" wrote in message
news

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
om...

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

P.S., I read your source about the new "Rule". Until that's a law,
it's not a law.

Steve


Here's the link on the Treasury site:

http://www.usmint.gov/pressroom/inde...release&ID=724

As I said before, I saw that press release. It's almost 2 years old.
The US Mint can make all the "rules" it wants. But until the rule
gets into the US code, it's unenforcable in US court. I've done a
search of the US code and have not found anything that says you can't
melt down pennies for the zinc content. You'd think it would be there
by now, being almost 2 years old. But as far as I can see, it's not.
I'm not going to bother searching all the individual State codes
because you'd think something like this would be in the US code if it
was anywhere since minting coins is a federal function.

If you can point me to such a law in the US code, I would greatly
appreciate it.

Steve