Price For Selling Lower-Grade Silver Coins

Hi Michael,

"melt" value could be translated to "face value" by formula:

"weight of coin (in gram)" x "% of silver in composition" x "current market silver price per gram"

Example:

Silver Washington quarter (1932-1964): 6.25 (g) x 0.900% x ($14.87/31.1034) = $2.69
Wartime silver nickel (1942-1945): 5.00 (g) x 0.350% x ($14.87/31.1034) = $0.84

I think a good offer from a dealer would be between 9x and 10x face. You could probably sell them on the forum pretty easily as well. Silver seems to go quickly here if priced reasonably.

To BH1964:

It's completely opposite: a formula I mentioned gives exactly "melt" value in both cases of a single coin and a bag of coins.
While a way you suggested gives some approximation which will give a big difference in case of bag of coins.

A price of good weight scale is less than $10.
And I thought it's clear for everybody and I don't need to mentioned about it that in formula above you need to use an actual weight of given coin and/or (an actual weight of bag of coins by using a corresponding weight scale).
If actual weight will be used it gives exactly melt value of given coin (or bag of coins).

As you said "All coins lose weight when they circulate, sometimes over 5% weight loss can occur on heavily worn coins."
And all coins lose wheight differently, some of them loss 2%, some - 5%, some - more or less.

A coefficient 0.715 is some approximation and again I could repeat your words: "Does not sound like much of a difference on one quarter but on a $1000 Face value bag?"
The formula I've mentioned gives a correct "melt value" in case of single coin and in case of $1000 Face value bag while a way you offered gives a huge different from reality in case of $1000 Face value bag because all coins loss weight differently.

Thanks.

How low?

I answered the question "what melt value will be in dollar amount".
And exactly the "melt value" and "numismatic value" are not the same ...

For many people remembering of one (or several) multiplier(s) is much easy than to remember any formula. It's a reason why multipliers are used for many decades.
But as we can see formula gives the approximately same final value. And it means that formula doesn't against multipliers used as industry standard but formula provides more precise value.

Also formula includes a component "% of silver in composition" to take into account a different amount of silver in different types of coins.
It's an additional advantage of using this formula: you need to remember a single formula only instead many different multipliers for different types of coins.

Thanks.

These should all be 40% silver and worth about $2.20 each unless they are damaged. You'd be lucky to get $2 from a dealer though.




You're probably right but if you post a group photo of the other pieces we can give you an idea.

And yes the older Walkers, assuming they're in decent shape, can bring a premium to melt so post a pic of them too.

As to your original question about selling to a dealer. That is usually how you get the least money for coins. You are better off selling to another collector or bullion house to get close to melt.

What you've described should be worth at least $700.

Be careful. You should really get a book, like the Red Book by Whitman Publishing, before you do anything. Not sure what you know about coins but there are some possible error coins worth a lot. For example a 1942/41 Mercury dime. Coins like that are worth a lot.