My coin dealer told me yesterday that the penalties are severe if you are charged with melting US coins to get to the base metal. I have put this information here for information purposes only and I d NOT recommend you sic the federals on yourself. Here is a link to a resource that tells all about the penalties:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080822005803AAINSRs

Myself, I will continue separating and saving these items for the possible future time when a PAW doesn't concern itself with these technicalities.

This is something we've recently decided to do - not as coin collectors but to collect a base metal investment. There isn't a day goes by that we don't pick up change someone has lost. Even a penny! Here it is.....some coins, at least the base metal content, are worth more than the face value of the coin. We all know about silver and gold which is handled in another area. There are two ingredients in US coins that make them something worth while to save - copper and nickle. Both are limited, getting scarce, and worthy to be housed in some of your old empty coffee cans as an investment. Here is the site that calculates the value of your 'metal':

http://www.coinflation.com/coins/basemetal_coin_calculator.html

Bottom line is we save all dimes, quarters, halves, and dollars pre-1965. These have a 90% silver content.

We save all nickels dated from 1946 - 2011 - Their nickle content is worth more than the face value of the coin (or, at least is projected to be based on scarcity and mining trends).

We save all pennies dated from 1909 - 1982. The copper content alone is approximately double the face value.

:cowboy:

I might have to start saving all of the electric heating elements I can gather. They are constructed of a nickel-chromium alloy, not sure of the content ratio but it's a lot of nickel and a little bit of chromium.

After reading a recent article by James Wesley Rawles about saving nickels, I decided to take a look into their content. Without me writing a long treatise, this article from Wikipedia explains the lowly nickel, revealing its base-metal content (as well as silver content during WW II). The nickel now is probably more prized for it's copper content.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel_%28United_States_coin%29