Questions ?

I wouldn't hoard nickels. If I were to hoard something, i would want to concentrate the value into something smaller. Silver sounds good. I have some stashed away. More people understand the value of silver vs. nickel. The more people that would want the metal you have saved, the more value it will have, and the easier to trade or sell.

If you can get copper bearing for power supplies, sell them as that. Most of my power supplies go to the scrap yard. If you want, you can take the time plugging model numbers into ebay, and checking if any have sold (not "for sale", but sold).

Nickels:
How much space can you spare? Nickels provide protection from both inflation and deflation. The high price of nickels a while ago was a function of both copper and nickel prices. You can find current melt value of nickels at:
Current Melt Value Of Coins - How Much Is Your Coin Worth?
and look for historical price of nickel at:
Kitco - Spot Nickel Historical Charts and Graphs - Nickel charts - Industrial metals

With your question on silver vs. nickels - I usually tend to try to work toward condensed stores of value, but am holding off my next purchase of silver or gold for a while, since I am reasonably satisfied with my own personal holdings. Given the fact that gold and silver values are highly correlated, an analyst I have great respect for is looking for a gold low in the $800s. I would hate to see that, but not overly surprised since that level of resistance needs to be tested before it can be considered valid support. Current Fed policy seems to be to suppress commodities prices to counteract inflation resulting from their QE policies. How long can they keep a lid on it? Your guess is as good as mine.

Copper - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Scroll down to about mid way Iron an you'll see it's been used in many ways since before the bronze age.

Interesting read at lest to me. heh.

Sirscrapalot - I know I am getting better at golf because I am hitting fewer spectators. - Gerald R. Ford

Power supplies:
My general rule of thumb - break down big piles of low value into smaller piles of higher value. Sell off piles with low value/high space requirements and retain piles of higher value/low space requirements. I break down stuff others don't believe is worth their time. If I'm making $6/hour, that beats $0/hour in my book.

I wish my yard would take'm as cb whole, sadly I'm forced to break them down as I can't bring myself to toss all those goodies into the shred pile.

I used to use one of those popcorn tins you see for sale for like 5 bucks, when it was full I'd take it in. Now I just use one of my smaller totes, fill it up, pluck out what can be stripped easily, an then take the rest in an cash out. I know silly, but I like extra money, an it gives me something to do when slow, bored, or just don't feel like doing much.

Sirscrapalot - Inspiration arrives as a packet of material to be delivered. - John Updike

My yard takes power supplies at .05/LB. Its worth it IMO to tear them down and get .20/lb for the board, 1.10/LB #2 INS, and then .07/LB for the case. Plus you have the AL heat sinks that are usually the better grade AL which I can get .60/LB for.