Comparing A Common Silver Dime To A Small Nugget In Melt Value

[Dances With Doves]

By using $1800 for gold and $28 for silver as a base a common dime would have a value of 2.02 and a .6 grain (not gram) nugget would have a value of 2.02 if it was at 90% purity.If you want to know the silver amount of a common dime  multiply .07234 times the   spot price of silver.A  .6 grain nugget is tiny.  I  would rather find a nugget then a  silver dime any day unless it is a very rare silver coin.I  imagine you nugget hunters  stumble on to a nice coin  now  and then.I heard Tom Massie found a $20 gold piece when he was nugget hunting.I hope I did my math right.Even with  copper surging to  $4.06 today a  common dime only   has .27 cents  of copper in it.

[nickelNdimed]

I imagine that would be my focus as well if I lived near gold bearing ground. However, that is not the case for me. 
 

Your argument is interesting however. I spent a lot of time working some lots and gridding an area of a park to find silver coins and found a few. And in the process, about $40-45 worth of clad. If I had put the time in to finding clad, it would certainly have added up to way more than the value of those silver coins I found. Heck, the $40-45 worth of clad were worth more. I also spent hours digging pull tabs and aluminum hoping to find more gold rings. I found one 10k woman’s ring, probably worth more than the clad.

I guess if it was all about the money, I would have kept myself from spending a couple thousand dollars in detectors and spent the time working any job and been ahead. 
 

Finding each coin and gold ring was a rush every time however. I don’t get that kind if rush at work. I imagine finding gold is a rush too.

[Dances With Doves]

To put things in perspective it would take 64 of those nuggets to = the weight of the dime.              

[GB_Amateur]

12 hours ago, Dances With Doves said:

Even with  copper surging to  $4.06 today a  common dime only   has .27 cents  of copper in it.

But how about 95% copper pennies?  Got any of those lying around?  145 (new) pennies weighs 1 lb.  0.95 times $4.06/lb divided by 145 pennies/lb equals $0.0266 per penny.  (I think it's still illegal to melt them, so don't get caught.  🙄)

Meanwhile zinc is just under $1.30/lb and it takes more new Stinkin Zincolns to weigh a pound.  And as every park/school detectorist knows, you have to really emphasize the word 'new'.  Save your calculator battery....

[Dances With Doves]

6 hours ago, GB_Amateur said:

But how about 95% copper pennies?  Got any of those lying around?  145 (new) pennies weighs 1 lb.  0.95 times $4.06/lb divided by 145 pennies/lb equals $0.0266 per penny.  (I think it's still illegal to melt them, so don't get caught.  🙄)

Meanwhile zinc is just under $1.30/lb and it takes more new Stinkin Zincolns to weigh a pound.  And as every park/school detectorist knows, you have to really emphasize the word 'new'.  Save your calculator battery....

I scrap the copper  I find plus the aluminum  and lead.I even scrap  some Iron.I roll up the pennies.The scrap yard is next to a Italian food service business         that my friends brother  owns so i get to kill  2 birds with 1 stone  when  I go down that way.