Hoard your coins, the banksters buy them at face value from the mint, they are treasury money and will survive the frn's collapse.
Every dollar of coins in your jar is a dollar out of the pockets of the people that made things this way.
https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12771.htm

They had been over .03 for a long time, but finally came back down.
http://coinapps.com/base-metal/coin/calculator/
Nickels are at .053usd, I've seen them over .06.
That is metal value, and it is, of course, 'against the law' for free people to melt them down.
At least in amerika.