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Searching bags of "junk" silver

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juice
New Member
USA
2 Posts

Posted 04/24/2006 03:55 am

After taking several years off from coin collecting I recently rediscovered the hobby and quickly found myself in the thick of it and hooked just as strong. I have been lurking on the forums for some time now but I decided to take the plunge and start posting.

With the prices of silver starting to rise my father and I decided to invest in bulk "junk silver" bags from a local metals exchange and I've really enjoyed going over huge numbers of silver coins cherrypicking overlooked dates and nicer condition coins.

So far in the last 2-3 weeks we've searched the following:

(3) 500$ FV Bags - Half Dollars
(3) 500$ FV Bags - Dimes
(1) 500$ FV Bag - Quarters

All bags contained all 90% silver coins (well they were suposed to anyways..) except for 1 of the half dollar bags which had about 90 40% kennedy halves. We ended up taking them back and trading them for 90% coins. All in all they bags consisted of much of what you would expect: many worn AG-F coins, some BU later year 90% silver and the occasional AU older date coin. Before we started the first bag we really expected to find a lot of later date silver but we were very very surprised to find that not to be the case.

The first 2 half dollar bags were about 85% walking liberty halves and about 10% franklin halves. A lot of mid-late 30s libertys and even a few in the 20s. We also found a great number of F-VF walking liberties and many AU franklins. The dimes were also a big win. The first 2 bags were loaded with mercury dimes. The first bag consisting of about 75% mercury (even a handfull of barber dimes) and the 2nd being about 40% mercury. The quarters were mostly washington but we found a lot of nice condition coins in there.

The only downer bags we had were 1 Dime (99.8% roosevelts - though many in the late 40s) and 1 Half dollar bag which was about 95% franklins.. I think we were a bit spoiled with the first few bags.

I'm still sorting through them taking a closer look for errors/dd's and mint marks to try and single out the gems. I hope to do a large summary of the project at some point and give the break downs for dates by coin types including any variation finds..

I'm curious if anyone else has been doing this and what your experiences have been. Ever find anything of great or decent value? I imagine that even if they had previously been searched for key dates there may be a possibility for some nice variation or semi-rare date coins.

Any tips on what to focus my searches on?

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neuron
Valued Member

USA
254 Posts

Posted 04/24/2006 5:27 pm

Welcome to the forums!

What you're doing sounds like a lot of fun. I'm a bit unclear as to what you're buying though- does a $500 FV bag of half dollars contain 1000 coins? If so, are you only charged bullion values? Sounds like a great deal if that's the case!

Also, because I'm too lazy to look it up myself, and because it might benefit other unknowledgeable forum members, what is a "metals exchange"? Thanks!

Regards,
~neuron

We are an impossibility in an impossible universe. -Ray Bradbury

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djluster
Pillar Of The Community

USA
1327 Posts

Posted 04/24/2006 6:20 pm

Sound like fun as well I just don't have the money to spend to do that. the best I am doing is buying rolls from the bank and looking through them. Also I do no that wiht silver coin selling so much. alot of dealer are having to put nicer coin in there bag to make orders complete so there is a chace if you keep buying form dealer then oy umight start getting nicer coins.

link to my coin collection
http://www.coincommunity.org/galler...hp?cat=10010

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toast
Pillar Of The Community

Australia
1091 Posts

Posted 04/24/2006 11:33 pm

One persons bag of "Junk Silver" is another persons bag of "Treasure".
The fun of sorting through all those coins...wow.
$500 of FV (face value) dimes is 5,000 dimes. The mind boggles.
You should be able to get a fantastic collection by cherrypicking through that bunch.
I wonder how the metal exchange get all these coins in the first place?

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humpybong
Pillar Of The Community

Australia
1204 Posts

Posted 04/25/2006 05:53 am

Welcome to the CC forum juice.

Look like you have something to keep you busy for a few days.

Have fun and enjoy.

Barry

"Experience enables you to recognise a mistake when you make it a again"

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rggoodie
Moderator

Coin Community Supporter Supporter!

2997 Posts

Posted 04/25/2006 07:14 am

Junk Silver!
I was in a coin shop yesterday when in walk these two blokes carrying a lare container of "SILVER".
It weighed just over 100 pounds it was old silver cups, plates etc.
They thought with the current price of silver they might have some money on hand.

Every bit of it was silver plated - not one piece of "real" silver in the lot.

I don't know when I last saw some one so disappointed.
Instead of leaving with a fistful of money- they left with what they cme in with- Junk.

So Junk coins have much greater value-
They provide an opportunity for just what you are doing - research, practice grading and at worst they have bullion and face value.
Enjoy your time checking out what started off as "junk silver"
It may be a treasure worth having.

Richard
www.aussie-coins.com
"catch em doing something right"

Edited by rggoodie - 04/25/2006 07:16 am

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juice
New Member
USA
2 Posts

Posted 04/25/2006 1:03 pm

thank you all for the warm welcome to your forum. I guess I should have been clearer on a few points as some of those terms were my own and probably not correct.

the metals exchange dealer I was reffering to is a local 'mint' who deals in large volumes of metals and also produces bars/rounds/eagles of their own kind of like the highland mint. They do very large volumes of buying and selling so buying bags of FV silver never seems to be an issue. you can check out their site at nwtmint.com .. the basic idea is you purchase a bag or half bag at a tad over market bullion prices for the silver contents.. halves and dollars cary a premium but quarters/dimes are all roughly the same price. a 500$ FV bag does indeed have 5k coins and 1000 coins for the halves. It is pricey definately.. but if you're already investing in silver bullion anyways.. why not get it in the form of coins that are in a known state and could possibly have numismatic value as well as being a lot of fun to search.

looking at these piles of 3-4000 mercury dimes and 800+ walking lib halves it feels like a windfall for our collection. I can't wait to get some pictures/stats for you all as this is definately a fun project.

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bobby131313
Forum Dad

Coin Community Supporter Supporter!

USA
3678 Posts

Posted 04/26/2006 2:54 pm

This topic has been Blogged. [:0]

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CiScO
Valued Member

USA
458 Posts

Posted 04/26/2006 4:59 pm

You know my friend, I think the title should be changed to

"Seaching Bags of "GOLDEN" Silver"

Welcome to our forum and keepa searching!

CiScO

Confucius say, "The best men are born wise. Next come those who grow wise by learning: then, learned, narrow minds. Narrow minds, without learning, are the lowest of the people. "

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