Inflation has all kinds of interesting consequences, and one of them is that you can sometimes profit from the distortions it creates. I’ll explain how to do that in an unusual way. You can actually take $100 worth of Federal Reserve Notes and exchange them for something worth $200 right now, today, in any town in America. It’s legal, ethical, and real.

Inflation is a destroyer of both values and justice. The people who were prudent with their money and saved it for the future see its value eroded or erased. Those who took on massive debt, far more than they could ever hope to pay back, benefit by paying that debt back with cheaper and cheaper currency as inflation marches on. The benefit is all imaginary, though, because such a grossly immoral scheme as inflating a currency can never be sustained. The people dependent upon the government handouts that are funded by inflation and debt never stop asking for more. Politicians never stop buying votes, either, even if they have to invent massive amounts of money to do it. Eventually, the whole thing blows up.

When a fiat currency implodes, everybody is hurt financially. In the best circumstances, the perpetrators responsible for the mess get punished, meaning, the politicians and social experimenters and intellectuals who championed inflationary monetary policy. You can’t count on it happening, though. So you have to do what you can to prevent yourself from becoming one of their victims.

Protecting yourself from inflation simply means investing your money in something that has real value and is not imaginary, so Federal Reserve Notes are out of the question. Gold and silver are popular anti-inflation investments, but almost anything not backed by the full faith and credit of our bankrupt government will do.

As I write this, we’re experiencing moderate inflation in the United States, as we have pretty much continuously since the introduction of fiat currency in 1913. It’s about to get a lot worse because of the ginormous amounts of spending recently undertaken by our cancerous Federal government. There is now a window of opportunity to beat them at their own game, risk-free. If we stay on the course we’re on (and we’ve been on it for almost a century), the window will close sometime in the future.

I made the claim that you can go spend a certain amount of money anywhere in America today and receive double the value in return. Doesn’t matter whether it’s $1, $100, or $10,000. You can spend any amount you wish and get twice as much in return. Most people don’t know about this. By the time everyone does know, you’ll have missed the opportunity.

So do you want to know just what the heck is this totally legitimate, risk free, double your money plan brought to you by inflation?

It’s pennies!

Copper pennies. The kind you can get from any bank. Specifically, those pennies minted before 1982 (with a few exceptions).

Back when our money was worth something — and just as importantly, when its value was stable and predictable — the penny was composed of 5% zinc and 95% copper. As the welfare state grew during the 20th century, the value of the dollar dropped further and further. By 1982, the dollar had fallen so far that Congress had to change the metallic composition of the penny. They had no choice because it actually cost more to make a penny than it was worth. That’s what I’d call depravity.

The situation arose because we were then in the midst of, and are now almost finished with, our transition away from commodity money.

Commodity money is just a term for money that is valued for its own intrinsic worth, arising out of the nature of the money itself, rather than promises of value guaranteed by a gun pointed at everyone’s back (that’s what “full faith and credit” really means). The United States used it for more than a century, up until 1913, and its value was fairly stable over that time. In 1913, we got the IRS and the Federal Reserve Bank and fiat currency, and the downward spiral began. Roosevelt confiscated and banned monetary gold in 1933, which was a significant step toward despotism, but far from the final act. The nation’s coinage was still made of silver, and its face value was worth approximately (although less and less) what was in the coin.

Silver went away in the 60s. We usually think of 1964 as the cut-off date, but many people forget that half dollars were minted with a smaller amount of silver until 1969. We like to destroy ourselves gradually in this country, not all at once like some of those third world nations.

And then the lowly penny required a composition change in 1982. It went from mostly copper to mostly zinc. We do have a bit lower to go, because the nickel still contains nickel, and the rest of our coins are not yet made of steel. Or plastic.

Back to today. That pre-1982 penny, which has a face value of only one cent and will cost you only one cent to get your paws on, actually has a metal value of about 2.3 cents as I write this (April 2010). So you can go down to the bank, buy a bundle of pennies, sort out the copper ones, and more than double your investment.

As inflation continues, the dollar value of your copper pennies will gradually increase. Even if some calamity happened and the copper market collapsed, you would still have your original investment. The penny has a face value of one cent, so even if its metal value fell to half a penny, you could still get one cent for your penny. As long as the United States are around and haven’t reneged on any more promises, that is. There may be little upside, but there is little risk. Think about it — a 100% profit on any sum of money is yours for the asking.

Now, on to some practical issues.

First, this is completely ethical. It is not stealing from the government, as many in government actually want us to believe.

The same phenomenon happened with silver coins decades ago. As their real value exceeded their face value, they disappeared from circulation in a simple demonstration of Gresham’s law: bad money drives out good. At the time, there were many news reports and politicians making noise about how hoarding silver coins was unpatriotic.

It is totally patriotic, moral, right, and legal (for now) to hoard coins for the purpose of making a profit on them. This is a very important point that is lost on many people today, especially the people in my generation who didn’t grow up in a world of commodity money.

People often wonder how they would ever get the value out of these pennies. One way is to simply keep them and exchange them with others at their true value. A silver dollar is worth almost $14 today. I could buy $14 worth of something and just hand over the silver dollar, if the other party was willing to accept it.

Another way to extract the value from your copper pennies is to melt them. This is commonly done with old silver coins — companies will buy up old coins, melt them, and sell the silver for industrial use. I’d rather have the beautiful old coins, but it’s not my silver.

This method is only theoretical, because a few years ago, our government banned the melting of nickels and pennies. Actually, this rule emanated directly from the Treasury Department in a very improper manueuver (remember when new laws came from the will of the people expressed through Congress, through an established process, not ad hoc whenever some Department deems it necessary?) The idea was that if everybody realized that copper pennies are worth more than their face value, they would disappear from circulation as crafty people melted them down for a profit (is that a problem?) Nevertheless, they have banned the practice, claiming that the need to preserve the nation’s pocket change is at stake, and anyone profiting from these coins, beyond simply storing them, is a thief.

How could you be a thief by melting down that which rightfully belongs to you? You own your money, not the government. They have no right to tell you what you can do with it or whether you can keep it, sell it, or modify it, except to prevent fraud. This holds true whether it’s gold, silver, or the trashy cupro-nickel tokens of today.

The whole point of exchanging value with others is to own the thing that you end up storing the value in, whether it’s real estate, stocks, money, or pumpkins. If we lived in a society that valued the intrinsic worth of metal and demanded to receive it in business transactions, and the government stepped in and said “No, that metal is just on loan from us. You can’t melt it or sell it for more than its face value. You can’t turn it into jewelry or dental work. You can only exchange it to us for worthless scraps of paper,” then nobody would store the product of their labors in something that the government could take over. You would have to be stupid to do so. You would also have to be stupid to trade away something of value and receive something of lesser value in return. Hence, Gresham’s law. No government can contradict reality, even if it really, really wants to.

Money as an object is no different than a house or a car. On principle, by virtue of your having earned it, it is your property to do with as you please. It makes no difference that the words “United States” appear on a coin. They only minted it and guaranteed its purity and value. Once it passes into your hands, legitimately, it is yours.

I can only make predictions about the future. If pennies (and soon, nickels) follow the same course as silver coins, they will gradually disappear from circulation, and one day trade at something higher than face value. The government may or may not lift the ban on melting. But you can profit just by holding onto them.

The price of copper is not guaranteed to do anything beneficial for you. It goes up and down. I suspect, as many others do, that it’s going to go up over time along with inflation. Again, even if it went down, your pennies should still be worth what you paid for them, future Congressional craziness notwithstanding. Even though copper pennies are a pretty boring investment, be careful to know all the facts and facets anyway.

Which base metal coins are worth more than their face value? Right now, it is the pre-1982 penny (2.3 cents), the U.S. nickel (6 cents), the 1955 – 1981 Canadian nickel (11 cents), and Canadian pennies minted before 1997 (they have values ranging from 1.9 cents to 2.4 cents). These prices are from the day I wrote this article, April 5, 2010. They can go up and down. I don’t know about countries outside of North America, but I’d appreciate reader reports.

Any U.S. penny that was minted before 1982 is mostly copper, except for 1943, when they were temporarily made of steel because of the war. Some 1982 pennies are copper, and some are zinc. To identify them, you can look at dates, weigh them, feel them, or listen to them — a copper penny will ring when thrown against a hard surface; a zinc penny will just thud. I can usually pick out the good ones on sight, without seeing the date, and I can always identify them by feeling. Don’t waste your time looking at dates.

If you decide to collect copper pennies with the expectation of making a profit on them, you’re counting on a few things being true:

1. The value of copper being higher than the face value of the penny.
2. Being able to find someone who will buy your pennies for their metal value, rather than face value. This has happened with silver coins.
3. Being legally allowed to melt the pennies and sell bulk copper, if you want to do it that way.

I hang on to them because I just can’t stand the idea of spending one cent that is actually worth two. And because they belong to me and not any government. If they made the mistake of destroying their currency and I find some legitimate way to make a profit from it, that is just a meager form of compensation for all of the other things they’ve taken from me. Another way to look at it is that commodity money, when viewed properly, is itself an investment and an object of speculation, as well as money with a guaranteed face value. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. It’s no injustice that I found a tiny way to win and other people did not.

I toss my pennies and nickels into a bin and mostly forget about them. Maybe I’ll make a profit on them someday. Mostly, I enjoy feeling like Scrooge McDuck!

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