Impact Of High Silver Spot On Pre 1967 Silver Coins.

Yes the RCM has that covered with their bullion ETF as an example, but during the last silver boom and to a lesser degree a few dealer still buy pre 67 coins for silver value only and during the peak most dealers were just dropping mainly common date silver dollars into 5 gallon pails strait to a refiner. One would think eventually even common dates will be hard to find but most dealers still gets a continuous supply even in today's prices. As in the ms 63 examples there is little or no demand for a 49 dollar but a 48 ms63 is always in demand at a certain price, you just don't see too many being offered.

Your source is unreliable. If that were so, ask them WHO do they suppose has the higher authority beyond respective governments to make melting of silver in Canada and the US illegal that would require this devious cross-border strategy in order to circumvent?

Read some of the tabs on RCM's own website pertaining to either their bullion segment or their Alloy Recovery Program (ARP).

I strongly suspect - Infact I'd bet a whole bucket of old silver if there was a way of proving it but there's not - but I strongly suspect a lot of the best old coin that was sold for melt never saw the melting pot. It was culled and resold back into the collector market. The rare and best examples have always been worth more than melt and the operations of any refinery would have to be awfully stupid to not cull to further increase profits.

The other reason I think so is that a staggering amount of people that I've talked to even at present are still under the false impression that the only value to silver coin above face is it's silver content. Notice the kijiji ads offering to pay a flat silver value per denomination? If that belief remains today, it certainly was more commonplace years ago as people were hauling off stashes of grandpa's collection, saved from circulated coin in his day, smiling because suddenly they discovered that each old but shiney coin was suddenly worth dollars because they noticed a full page ad in the paper or got a mailbox drop about some outfit setting up shop for the weekend, literally begging them to sell that silver!

the gold/silver dealer that I know is personally responsible for 100's of thousand of face dollars going to the melt pot, they ship it to the canada mint, who refine it and he gets a gold/ silver credit on his pool account.. yes I would surmise that of the 1960's dimes, quarters,halfs, and dollars. more has been melted than is still out there..but remember there were millions on top of millions of all these coins minted..

Even with all the melting and destruction of our past coinage , I am sure that there will always be a ready supply of most everything in the Charlton catalogue, for future generations to collect including the rarities.
It is still a surprise to see what is out there and where it comes from. Sure most of the stuff offered is quite common and was collected out of pocket change back in the day. However doing a buy you still get surprised.
For example look at the recent post on the BU roll of 1943 BU cents featured on our forum, or the Landon hoard that was the talk of the coin community last year. As a personal experience over the last two years, I have purchased two major hoards of
Original rolls and quantities of most dates and denominations of George VI and EIIR from 1937 to 1964. These came from different long time holdings and it is a treat to have the opportunity to examine quantities of original material.

I have really enjoyed reading all your opinions on this
topic.

I hope it is OK to add a couple points.

I live in Florida, and work for a family that has two local
coin shops. The shops buy a good amount of foreign silver,
pre 1967 Canadian silver coins being the dominate amount
of coins thrown into the foreign silver bucket.

When the bucket gets enough value, the coins are taken
to be melted. My guess would be every month or so.

There will be coins of every denomination going back to
Queen Victoria. From low grade coins to cut up mint sets.

I feel this happens in most coin shop all over the
United States. At some point it could have a impact on
availability of common silver coins, but maybe not in my
lifetime.

Also, it is legal in the United State, to melt old U.S.
silver coins. But it is not legal to melt nickels and
cents.

There is also a few wise persons who in 66 or later just ordered these dollars from banks for face and hoarded them till today, there was just so much minted.

I would say that most if not all of the people who were around in 1966 and were actually old enough to a) know what was going to happen and b) who were financially capable of socking away a ton of money, are likely at this point deceased being 75 or older (assuming an age of 25 @ 1966).

they most likely sold in the early 80's.

I don't think many people are sitting on hoards that have been in the closet for the past 50 years. These hoards would have been sold or divided between the heirs over the last few decades.