I suggest everyone here go to their local bank and pick up a box or two of nickels. You can buy them for 5 cents and right now they are worth 5.9 cents and moving up. They are a great hedge against inflation.
Ive included a link to coinflation.com where you can keep track of what they are worth on a daily basis.
You can also collect pre 1982 pennies which are 95% copper. Pennies after 1982 are mostly zinc and dont carry the values that a older pre 82 penny do. Of course its harder to sort through pennies than it is to just buy nickels. I have several hundred pounds of pennies but I bought most of them on ebay instead of buying a penny sorter and going to the bank for bags of pennies to sort.