Junk Silver

, korimeyers!

With that many coins, there's bound to be a few good ones. The question is, how much do you want to work to identify them? Or will your coin guy provide that service for you?

A few pieces of advice:

- whatever you do, don't clean the coins! Many folks think that by cleaning them, they'll get a better offer. Nope. All you'll do by cleaning is insure you get no more than silver value.

- pretty much any Mercury dime before 1940 is worth more than melt, if it's in close to uncirculated state.

- Mercury dimes typically sell above melt value. I typically sell them for between 110% and 120% of spot, in rolls

- look through your Standing Liberty quarters for the lack of stars under the eagle in the coin's reverse. Those are special. Same thing about wear on these: uncirculated SLQ's are generally worth more than melt.

Anything over about $9k for those coins is a very good deal. But only if they're truly junk. I normally offer the customer a "runway model/lottery winner" service: I look through the coins they're selling me to ID the good ones. They're rare, though

Thanks, everyone - I really appreciate all of the advice. I am in Nashville - found another dealer who pays 21.6 times face value - which would be $9500. If anyone knows of a good dealer in the area let me know. I think we may take it tomorrow to the second one I found. My mom really wants to sell it now - gets a little impatient - I barely got her to wait and not sell to that gold shop guy. Thank god she listened to me.

I am going to look back through it all. I know I do have some Mercury dimes - just need to find dates. I don't think any of it is uncirculated - maybe some of the quarters but I have some things with dates rubbed off.

I assumed you had a relatively small amount of silver. If you have over $10,000 melt value you might do better with APMEX. Although the process is a little involved & takes some time I've sold to them with good results. You set up an online account, call to lock in a price & send your things by registered mail. The main problem with that is registered mail is VERY slow & it could take several weeks to get your check.

In my small town I couldn't get more than 70% of melt so the hassle was worthwhile. If I had a local guy that was willing to pay in the 90% range I probably wouldn't deal with APMEX & USPS just to squeeze out an extra 2-3%.

At my local dealer you would get about $10,000 for these coins. I would not take less than $9000 if I were you.

I can understand someone needing money and wants to go ahead and get rid of them as soon as they can but if you do want to look for key dates it doesn't matter what condition they are in, a key date is always going to be worth more than their counterparts even if they are highly worn or even damaged. So if you need to know what the key dates are for a certain series so you can search through them real quick for that particular date it could be very lucrative for you because like the 1916-D Mercury dime, it can be worth close to $1000.00 in very worn condition so you can see where key dates can add value to the whole collection real fast

Good for you. I sold a bunch of junk silver last year and it is amazing how many dealers want to rip you off, so good thing you shopped around, and used this board as a resource.

, bandsdean!