What is Coinflation?

I made the word up. Doesn't really exist. Well, I guess it does exist now, but you won't find it in the dictionary. If I was asked to write a formal definition for Webster's it would probably look something like this:

coinflation [ koin-fley-shuhn ]
noun.  1. A persistent rise in the metal value of silver and base metal coins.  2. An inflationary effect on coins.  3. The difference between the metal value and face value in coins.

How would you use it in a sentence? How about, "Since coinflation is accelerating, I'm not going to dump these pennies into the Coinstar machine at the market and receive face value." Or, "I'm not seeing many copper cents in circulation anymore, I'm guessing we're seeing a little coinflation here." My wife uses the word in a sentence all the time, "Quit working on your stupid coinflation website and let's go out for Chinese food."


Base Metal and Silver Price Trends

The trend is up. Copper/Nickel/Zinc prices move in either direction primarily based on short-term physical demand and speculation on economic manufacturing forecasts. On the supply side, mining isn't keeping up with demand and the market has responded with higher prices. Hoarding coins is certainly one way to invest, but investing in major mining producers can be more profitable. Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. and Teck Resources Limited have produced excellent returns and are worth looking into further.

           

Silver is a slightly different story. It's moved from the $4.50 range in 2002 to over $20.00 in 2008 and has the potential to run much higher because of its role as a monetary metal in inflationary environments. Silver coins are obviously very easy to buy and sell at any coinshop or online dealer. On the equity side, I recommend doing your own research, but the Central Fund of Canada is an excellent alternative to physical bullion (I own shares).




About the Website

It receives over 500,000 page requests from 100,000+ unique visitors a month, including over 50% directly from search engine users looking for true coin values. It's been referenced in Forbes Magazine, Marketwatch, USAToday, and newspapers across the United States. Someone even created a Wikipedia page about the site, but then a few months later they decided to delete it. The delete log is actually pretty amusing, they keep referring to Coinflation.com as a company.

New features are usually added every month (like the silver melt value calculator) and articles about coins and inflation are posted daily. The pages are template-driven and a korn shell script updates coin values with the current silver and base metal prices. Other interactive features are built using PHP and MySQL.

Interested in advertising on Coinflation.com? All advertising space is coordinated through the Google Adwords program.

Several other domain names point to Coinflation including SilverCoinValues.com, CoinMetalValues.com, CoinMeltValues.com, and CoinCalculator.com.

If you have a question about the website, please read the FAQ page.

Otherwise, I can be contacted at nevalainen@gmail.com. Due to the recent surge in traffic (and subsequent emails), I haven't been able to respond to every message.

Thanks for visiting,
Alec Nevalainen