I have always wanted to see if it's true that you can melt a zincoln in a camp fire.
Never have melted anything myself, although as I mature in my studies I am seeing less and less issue with melting common, low grade coins less than 100 years old, provided they are common enough.
In Chem classes we always tried doing things with coins. Dissolving them in Acid produced some interesting STUFF. Pennies produced CuSO4 and when allowed to evaporate would make some fantastic Crystals.
Quote: I've never melted a coin. Will never melt a coin either. It's a form of blasphemy.
The only thing I can say to melting coins is I just think of all those Morgans melted under the Pittman Act, or gold coins melted in 1933, or silver coins melted in the 1980's...the horror!
I might have tried to melt a cheap common coin in an experiment, but it requires such a complicated setup that I never actually did it.
I did once try putting a coin in Fanta overnight (didn't melt at all, but got a weird orange color), and also once cut a coin in half, to check if it was clad (it was). [To clarify, I wanted to find out what the new 10 kopek coins were made of, since they were yellow and magnetic and I wasn't aware of a yellow magnetic alloy. At the time, 10 kopek was about $0.003; even less today.]
When I was in my Freshman chemistry class, I put a clad quarter in nitric or hydrochloric acid (I don't remember) and it dissolved off the copper-nickel outer layers leaving me with a "copper" quarter. Much to my surprise, when I put it in a pinball machine it gave me a credit, but rejected the coin. I must have played 75 or more games with that one quarter until one day it kept it!
I don't believe many 90% silvers are sent to the smelter, not when they normally carry a premium at sale. My LCS never has much inventory unless you are there at the right time. They just don't stick around long.
When I listen to LED ZEPPELIN...so do my neighbors... Roll hunting since '77 Dirt fishing since '72
The melt value as I understand it, is the amount of valuable intrinsic metal plus cost to refine. The less valuable alloys are not considered. The old rule and reason is for example in simple numbers...
If you have 10 1 troy ounce coins and they 90% silver and 10% copper and silver spot price is $10.00 an ounce you can only expect to be paid for 9 troy ounces, or $90.00 and then... wait... whether they actually get melted or not the buyer will charge a refining fee of 10% ( most times 15% ) So you can expect to lose another 10% selling. You would get $80.00
If you buy on the other hand, you buy the same lot. You will pay for the value of the silver, and have to pay a buyers premium over spot ( usually the same as the refining fee but often less ) and could end up paying $100 for 10 oz of 90% silver coins.
For .999 pure refined silver, there is no refining fee. There is just a similar but smaller premium over spot when buying, and when selling the same goes the other way where you lose a percentage. Nobody trades in precious metals without a profit or loss involved.
Disclaimer: While a tremendous amount of effort goes into ensuring the accuracy of the information contained in this site, Coin Community assumes no liability for errors. Copyright 2005 - 2026 Coin Community Family- all rights reserved worldwide. Use of any images or content on this website without prior written permission of Coin Community or the original lender is strictly prohibited. Contact Us | Advertise Here | Privacy Policy / Terms of Use
First Page
Posted 06/20/2017 6:08 pm
DavidUK
The only thing I can say to melting coins is 
