Purchasing Silver Coins From "We Buy Gold & Silver Places"

Yes, we're talking about the places with the big signs saying "We Buy Gold". Like I said previously, it is a bit of a hit or miss whether or not they will sell to you. Some have deals set up already with refiners or coin shops and don't want to compromise that. The place I visit frequently bases the prices they give me off of what they would be getting from the coin shop that they would selling to otherwise. We come up with a price between what they would get from the coin shop and what I would pay if I bought it from the coin shop. It's been a few months since I bought anything from them, but last time I paid $18-$20 for VF-XF Morgans and AU-BU less common Peace dollars. They had someone bring in like 95 Morgan/Peace with most of them Peace dollars. At the time, I could only afford 12 or so of them, so they allowed me to cherry pick the best ones.

The other benefit I've noticed from building a relationship with these gold/silver places is that many times when people bring in coins to sell, not all of them are gold or silver. In these cases, this shop isn't interested, but since I've built a relationship with them, they'll give me a call when someone brings in anything they're not interested in. I haven't scored anything spectacular yet, but at least I'm open to the opportunity.

I went to my LCS yesterday, and while they prominently have a sign that tells they buy gold/silver, the deals aren't that great, with dimes $2, quarters $4, and halves $8, all well above spot, and the deal is especially troublesome for the silver dollars ($25 each, all Fine or worse or VF/EF with problems!) $29.95 Danscos (I see the same nicely used album on ebay for half of that) and $20 used Whitman Albums aren't that much of a deal either!

I might check a few more that are less of a coin dealer and more of a buy place, but there aren't that many within 15 miles of my place.

Most coin stores sell "junk silver" 90% coin and right now it is about 15x face

Ok..so after I made a post saying that I would try this I came to find out that tons of the "we buy gold" places are no longer in business after gold came down to 1200. I found one today and went in to find that the owner would sell to me. Originally he said $18 per $1 face value which he could obviously see the hesitation on my face. He then said well, if you've got $100 to spend then I'll go $16 for $1 face value. I thought that for this price I could see what kind of coins he had and not feel too torn up if the coins were bad. I said "I'll take whatever standing liberties that you have" and he initially brought back a walking liberty and I said "No, the standing liberties" and he said "which ones are those?" when he said that I was pretty happy inside.

I got home and looked at my coins and generally it was all pretty basic. Most of the standing liberties were pre-1925 and the dates were so worn that it was impossible to see..but I had also picked up some walking liberties and there were a couple of key dates in there which after I priced everything out, came to a greater profit if I were to sell all coins individually. Also, some of the coins are in really nice condition.

So all in all I think I would go in again. This time I would see whether or not he would let me cherry pick the coins. I don't think he'd have a problem with that. I'd also try to see whether or not he'd agree to lower his price by a dollar or two if I promise to be a loyal customer. These shops don't deal in condition of coins or key dates etc...it's all about the precious metal. So, if you can find a shop like this that'll sell to you then go check it out because it could be a great opportunity to find rare coins for cheap.

My gold guy would only sell me them at 30% off RedBook haha. Though I get my silver at $14 face so I'm doing ok at my local coin shop. I've been getting ms franklins and decent walkers from the at that price.

Local sales tax around here almost always kills the local deals from the shops.
Cheaper to purchase online.

I have one of these shops next door to my job. Most of them have closed, but this one is thriving. He also sells jewelry, which is a good idea. I was on a skunk streak, and checked it out. The owner was very nice, and gave me a good deal. I'll keep checking back with him.

I was going to check out a "we buy gold" shop in my area today but I found the space vacated. Seems that quite a few have closed.