Junk Silver Coins

Bowfin makes a good point, there is more hoarding going on then melting and many of these coins will be back in Numismatic hands when the precious metals bubble bursts.

KK

Exactly, this is not a repeat of 1979-1980 when coins were loaded into the melting pots by the bag. Face value bags have become a very popular silver investment vehicle, my local dealer currently has a waiting list for them(supplied from walk-in silver purchases). Here is a sampling of what you could find in one of those bags- VG Barber halves, VG-F SLQs, EF-AU Walking Libertys, AU-MS Mercs and Roosies, AU-MS Franklins, and even some low grade Seated Liberty coins.

You just saved me from typing all the same thing as what you said.

Hoarding? I used to think that. I can only speak to the town I live in in Ohio and my hometown in Ca I visit all the time. I have a good relationship with the dealers in both towns. With the run up in Silver; these dealers are being inundated with folks selling their silver. At the same time these dealers are telling me that more than more than 95 percent of this silver is being melted. In the last two years alone over 400 million ounces of silver have been scraped. Since 2001 more than 1.8 billion ounces of silver have been reclaimed ( source: World Silver Survey 2011). By the way according to the same source ( which is blatently bullish silver), supply outstripped demand by 178 million ounces, which should tell you something about the disconnect between supply and demand philosophies and actual market prices.

There ARE silver hoarders,but they only save a small percentage of the silver turned in for scrap. All of my connections in the scrap/dealer industry agree that most of the silver coins they take in are MELTED.

If only 20 percent of all recycled silver is derived from scrap coins then we still have 360 million ounces worth of scrapped coins to account for. Thats the equivalent of 460 million Morgans;or 920 million halves; 1.84 billion quarters;or 4.6 billion dimes. Ohio Precious Metals LLC recently reported that half of its intake is due to coins and flateware. They reported that a single coin dealer brought in more than 200,000 ounces in March. So you can see my numbers are probably low. If the trend continues for another 10 years and the numbers of scrapped coins increase then 10 years from now we could well approach 1 billion ounces of scrapped coins. That would be 1.3 billion morgans ( exceeds mintage), 2.6 billion Halves, 5.2 billion quarters or 13 billion dimes. Not including of course the Hundreds of millions scrapped in the decades before 2000.

Simple math folks. While Billions of coins minted are a lot, it is not an infinite number; and has already been reached with the total historical count of coins melted. Make no mistake probably half of all silver coins ever produced have been melted, with another 20 percent still in the ground somewhere.

What JMKendall said (above).
my thoughts are: How soon will which silver coins and what grades become worth more then any eventual melt value?... In ten years? 20? WHO KNOWS...

(as John1 knows) This is why the basic advice to new coin collectors (or old ones) is to build a collection by obtaining the highest grade, rarest example, of a coin within your financial means. Include with that Singleness of purpose... i.e. a well defined "vision" of your collection and collecting goals.... is also important. Take John Jay Pittman as an example. John, an ordinary wage earner, became rich (eventually) by this process of patience and careful study... NUMISMATIC EDUCATION... as we say here at ccf.

JMkendal - Are you from Jackson?

I didn't realize that they took in so much in PMs , I'm amazed by the numbers you're offering. Part of me wants to go down and ask if they let anyone sort through the 'junk' they get :D

On the other hand some of your junk silver could end up like this a lot sooner than you think.

http://www.pcgsblog.com/jaime/news/...w-ball-coins

I'm 14 turning on 15 in 8 days and everytime I buy junk silver I think about this.