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Advantages to lower-value-per-pound assets
In fact, there are advantages to nickels weighing 22.2 pounds per $100 of value. Can a thief grab your box of nickels when you are carrying it to your car and run away with it? Folks, I’m 71, but if you take my 22.2-pound box of nickels, I’ll run your ass down because no one can run very fast carrying such an awkward, heavy object.

Actually, the same is true of a 27-pound half bag of junk silver. It’s worth about $6,500 today.

Not counterfeited or robbed
Another advantage of pennies and nickels compared to gold or silver is that they are not counterfeited and generally not robbed. Basically, there is not enough incentive to do either. Too much trouble for way too little money.

More convenient denomination for barter
Another virtue of the relatively low value per pound of nickels, that they are a relatively convenient denomination in a barter situation. The scenario where you benefit from your gold or silver or nickel is barter during a monetary crisis (inflation or deflation). They do not give change in barter markets. So a one-ounce gold coin that is worth $1,350 is a tough one to spend when you can’t get change. What’re you going to buy that you don’t care about change? Three big flat screen TVs?

In such a crisis, a roll of $2 of nickels would have the purchasing power that $2 does today. It’s pretty portable, albeit heavier than a $2 bill. Somewhat reminiscent of a pocketful of Australian 50¢ pieces. You would not want to get hit in the head with one of those. They weigh 15.5 grams each, which is a little over half an ounce. A U.S. half dollar weighs 12.5 grams.

$50,000 the size of a twin-size bed
Back to the $50,000 batch of nickels, that would be 500 $100 boxes. Total weight would be 11,100 pounds—five and a half tons. Total size would be, if laid end to end 500 x 9.25" = 4,625 inches or 4,625 ÷ 12 = 385 feet—a little longer than a football field plus its two end zones.

How about we stack the boxes five high? That means the footprint of the stack would be 100 boxes. 10 boxes long by ten deep or 92.5 " x 36.25" or 7.7 feet by 3 feet by 1 foot nine inches high, about the size of a twin bed and inner spring on the floor rather than elevated on legs.

Basement, garage, miniwarehouse
But you say it weighs five and a half tons. Yeah, and my car and my wife’s weigh four tons combined. So put the nickels in the basement or garage, not the attic. The standard maximum load you are supposed to put on a house floor is 40 pounds per square foot. That is a wooden floor that has air under it, not concrete.

If you put three boxes of nickels side by side with the 4" side against the floor, then add another box across the top of the three with its 3 " side against the floor, you will approximately cover one square foot. The weight of that one layer would be 4 x 22.2 pounds or 88.8 pounds per square foot. Too much. Five layers high as I described above would be 5 x 88.8 = 444 pounds per square foot.
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So garage, basement, or miniwarehouse.

Was that so hard? And that’s $50,000 worth of nickels.

Uniquely attractive store of value
What is so great about nickels? They can go up in melt value during inflation. See Coinflation.com. But they cannot go down in value in deflation (depression) because the words “five cents” are engraved on them. Their value is alway five cents or the melt value, whichever is greater. You can always sell them back to a bank for what you paid for them.

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