The margins involved on the nickel look as if they may be large enough to make melting worthwhile and a shortage of small change makes life very inconvenient.

When the world's reserve currency is worth more in the vat than the till, there's a problem somewhere.ĭespite the somewhat draconian nature of the new laws, you can see why the US Mint has done it. Of course, shortly afterwards the price of gold for international transactions was raised to $35 an ounce, netting the state a decent profit.īut the second aspect is that you simply couldn't ask for a pithier encapsulation of how the dollar's value is being eroded. Any large holdings of gold were confiscated at a price of $20.67 an ounce and melted down into bars for the Treasury. More infamous was what gold bugs term The Great Confiscation' of 1933, when the Roosevelt government declared that it was no longer legal for private citizens to 'hoard' gold coins and bullion. Consequentially, almost all 1795-1834 gold coins were melted down and the gold reused to make more coins with that same notional value. As a handful of commentators more versed in numismatic history than us have pointed out, melting down coins to make a quick buck is something that the US government has a history of doing.īack in 1834, the gold content of coins was reduced, leaving older coins worth more than their face value. The first is that it's an elegant illustration of the do as I say, not as I do' approach that governments are wont to take whenever they can get away with it. If you're considering shipping coins out of the country for melting, that dodge has been kyboshed as well henceforth, travellers can only carry $5 in nickels and cents out of the country. But from now on, dumping your chump change in the fondue set and turning it into an ingot could get you up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. Until this month, melting down coins hasn't been illegal in the US.

Us government gold coins