When it comes to combatting the malevolently minded malcontents hoarding the nation's supply of pennies, everybody has their two cents to offer.

Except Francois R. Velde. He's offering a nickel.

Mr. Velde, senior economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, suggests one way to turn the penny-pinchers -- who hope to capitalize on record metals prices -- into penny spenders is to make a penny worth five cents.

His proposal, made in the latest issue of the Chicago Fed Letter, comes a month after the U.S. Mint announced its own plan for dealing with the shortage of small change: an interim order banning melting or exporting pennies and nickels. The agency wants to make the order permanent, complete with prison sentences of up to five years and fines as high as $10,000. That would prevent people from melting the coins because the copper, nickel and zinc in them is worth more than the coins' face value.

The Mint says there is currently about 1.12 cents worth of copper and zinc in a newly minted one-cent piece, while the nickel and copper in a five-cent piece is worth 6.99 cents.

"We don't want to see our pennies and nickels melted down so a few individuals can take advantage of the American taxpayer," says Mint Director Edmund C. Moy. "Replacing these coins would be an enormous cost to taxpayers."

Mr. Velde believes the problem might melt away if pennies were accepted as nickels. He starts with the fact that a penny doesn't buy anything these days. Sooner or later, the penny will go the way of the U.S. half-cent, which disappeared in 1857. Why not hasten that day by making a penny worth as much as a nickel, Mr. Velde asks?

That would make the 100 billion pennies currently in circulation worth $5 billion instead of $1 billion.

"Turning it into a nickel is good for kids. Immediately, their piggy banks will be worth a lot more," says Fariborz Ghadar, director of the Center for Global Business Studies at Penn State's Smeal College of Business.

But Lou Zona, owner of Cranberry Coins & Currency, thinks Mr. Velde's proposal might incite a different variety of criminal than the malicious melters on the Mint's mind.

"Everybody would be stealing cents off of everybody,'' says Mr. Zona, a CPA who thinks Americans have too much of a sentimental attachment to the penny to let it go.

He suggests the Mint do what it's done in the past when metals prices have spiked: Ask Congress to authorize minting the coins with a less expensive mix of metals. That would cost less than the $4 billion price tag on Mr. Velde's suggestion, which doesn't even include the pennies that hoarders have taken out of circulation, Mr. Zona says.

When copper spiked to $1.40 a pound in 1974, Congress authorized reducing the copper content of a penny. Copper prices backed off, so the agency didn't act until they shot back over $1.40 in 1980. Two years later, it reduced the copper in a penny, which weights 2.5 grams, to just 2.5 percent, with zinc accounting for the rest.

Paying $1.40 for a pound of copper may have been outrageous 25 years ago, but it would be a bargain at today's prices. Copper topped $4 in May and currently is priced at about $2.60 per pound. Zinc fetches about $1.70 a pound, four times more than five years ago. Nickel, which accounts for 25 percent of the metal in a 5-gram nickel, currently costs more than $17 a pound, six times more than it did five years ago.

Just because the metallic value of a coin exceeds its face value doesn't mean melting is a money-making proposition. Even if it weren't against the law, it's not something you can do on your own with the pennies collecting dust around your home.

For starters, do you have access to an oven that will reach 800 degrees Fahrenheit? That's approximately the melting point of zinc. It's even higher for nickel (1,450 degrees) and copper (nearly 2,000 degrees). You'd have to pay someone to do the melting for you, as well as cover the cost of transporting the coins to and from the oven. So even if it were legal, melting would be penny wise and pound foolish for most.

As attractive as Mr. Velde's suggestion is, there is bound to be opposition. Vending machine operators would have to retool their machines to accept pennies as nickels, and now isn't the time to ask them. They're still reeling from a Nov. 28 federal judge's decision in a lawsuit brought by the American Council for the Blind.

U.S. District Judge James Robertson ruled that the Treasury Department discriminates against the blind, who can't distinguish whether they're holding a $1 bill or a $20. If his decision is upheld on appeal, the Treasury would have to resize paper currency, add Braille lettering or make other modifications. Modifying vending machines to accommodate the new paper money would cost up to $300 per machine, according to the National Automatic Merchandising Association.

That's a pretty penny, but so is what taxpayers are paying to keep the penny in existence. The fact that it costs the Mint 1.73 cents to make a penny may not seem like much, but when the agency makes billions of them a year, ornery taxpayers can be excused for reminiscing about $600 toilet seats and $400 hammers.

"I think it's probably time to get rid of the penny," says economist Josephine Olson, who teaches business administration at Pitt's Katz Graduate School of Business. "But turning it into a nickel isn't going to go over too well."