Social media is awash with self-proclaimed financial gurus, promoting alternative strategies. Some adopt fantastical personas like a “Nickel Goblin,” while others pose as wealthy, handsome, gun-toting market geniuses. And they want you onboard with their strategies.

A niche group of speculative investors claim to be stacking pallets of Jefferson nickels from the US Department of the Treasury, expecting the five-cent coins to appreciate beyond their face value in the near future.

Proponents of this gamble claim that holding the physical currency has both high upside potential and strong downside risk protection. The logic follows: if it appreciates, sell it; if not, spend it. This “low risk, high reward” rhetoric, the reader might note, has been employed by snakeoil salesmen and rubes dating back centuries.

“Nickels are the ONLY investment on earth that give you full liquidity for face value while giving you a call option on copper and nickel,” writes one user on X. “The calls are ITM,” he quips.

The grounds for this argument are highly speculative. The investment thesis for hoarding nickels hinges on several factors: a future decision by the US Treasury to decommission the coin, an ensuing scarcity of nickels, and rising value of the underlying metals.

Will the melt value of the coin surpass the face value of five-cents per nickel?

A standard composition for the Jefferson nickel is 60 percent copper, 20 percent zinc, and 20 percent nickel. The melt value of the coin is currently around 4.7 cents.

Nickel enthusiasts even cite the historical precedent of Washington quarters.

Before 1965, a twenty-five cent coin was composed of 90 percent silver. Silver was removed from quarters, and the value of a twenty-five-cent coin rose tenfold or more over the following decade. Today, a Washington quarter fetches anywhere from eight dollars to several hundred dollars on the open market, based on its silver content and its condition or collectible value.

Nickels could follow the same trajectory, some speculators assert. Though copper and zinc hardly compare to silver in dollar terms.

The Treasury announced earlier this year that it would cease production of the penny, citing the impractical cost to manufacture one-cent coins. Each penny costs 3.7 cents to produce, according to the United States Mint. No such news to decommission the nickel has been released though, and making a nickel currently costs almost fourteen cents.

Could $10,000 of Jefferson nickels today really yield $100,000 in a decade? Investing in money market funds barely beats inflation these days. Could holding physical coins be much better?

Acquiring an asset is usually the easy part, but selling it for a higher price is the crux of the biscuit, especially for something as mundane as a nickel. Nickel speculators pose three exit scenarios for this investment. Melt, Sell, or Spend.

Prospect :

1. Trade $10,000 for 200,000 nickels

2. Store coins in cool, dry place for 10 years

(weighs a metric ton; roughly the size of a Toyota 4Runner, but you can’t drive it)

3. Eat inflation

(assuming constant 3% inflation over 10 years; five cents becomes 3.7 cents)

4. Melt coins • OR • Sell to collectors • OR • Spend at the strip club

As of today’s publication, the prices of copper and zinc are up 25 percent and 5 percent year to date, respectively. The price of nickel is down 2.6 percent in that same timeframe.

Governments and corporations are focusing more on metals and rare earth minerals seen as vital for producing advanced technology. So, hoarding coins is posited as a bet on the appreciation of the underlying material.

However, extracting the metal value from nickels incurs obvious costs. One must pay a foundry to melt the coins. There is also the pesky detail that destroying or defacing currency is a crime punishable by fines or up to five years in prison in the United States.

Offloading pallets of nickels to coin collectors seems equally impractical. One would need hundreds or thousands of buyers. The time, effort, frustration and logistics for this outcome would presumably diminish the satisfaction for the sale, nevermind the impact of shipping costs on profit margins.

Lastly, to spend this many nickels would require heavy pockets and very patient store clerks.

While the melt value of nickels might outpace inflation over time, profit through this contrarian play seems a distant uncertainty. The storage space for so many coins might better serve as a room for rent or an office space in which to do a real job.

In an age where many parts of the economy (or even the world!) defy reason and logic, hoarding nickels is firmly the antics of social media trolls and avowed contrarians rather than the purview of studied investors.

Some dedicated coin collectors may be playing a more sophisticated game. The US Mint is likely to phase out the production of nickels in the near future.

Coin collectors were buzzing last year about a possible rare opportunity.

Take Eric Miller, a purveyor of coins on social media.

When asked by Scott Detrow on NPR’s “All Things Considered” podcast why accumulate 2024 nickels, Miller said he’s “interested when you can turn a regular coin into a lot more money or currency.”

Only 70 million nickels were produced by the US Mint in 2024. Whereas, 500 million or even a billion per year is much more common in recent decades.

Miller likened 2024 nickels to the West Point Quarters of 2019–2020, of which 20 million were minted.

“Just to pick up a year and say, I found one, and it's worth more money—it doesn't usually happen.”

For seasoned coin collectors, recognizing a rare mintage in process can be lucrative.

Perhaps the current social media craze over nickels is actually undisciplined coin collectors offloading non-precious nickels onto retail buyers, with specious investment advice. It could also represent a burgeoning attempt at market manipulation.

Parting people from their money through fraud or foolery is almost a sport these days. Psyops and ponzis abound.

Stay safe out there in these wild economic times. Use your spare room for better things than an oversized coin collection, and always remember Warren Buffet’s first rule of investing: Never lose money.