Cant Part With Coins To Sell As Scrap

It's fun to sell, buy, and trade! Don't get to attached to anything. There is always something more interesting down the road!

I have no problem getting rid of problem coins or coins that are worn. I like to buy coins that are in better condition to replace any problem coins I have.

These days do most coins sold at melt value actually get melted? Maybe I'm weird, but I would prefer to buy junk silver in the form of silver coins because they were government issued and contain a specifically known quantity / percentage of silver. Unlike random bars which likely are what they say, but how do you know for sure? Just seems weird to me to actually melt them down...

The coin dealer I deal with scraps hundreds of dollars ( face value) silver each week. If you don't get there at the right time just about every silver coin he gets in goes to the scrapper. I have seen him cut up late 50s to 70 proof sets for the silver coins and throw the nickels and dimes in the register. I have seen him send to the scraper almost a hundred sets of 50 state silver proof coins. Why? Because he gets about $5.50 apiece for them. I have seached bags of dimes, quarters, and halves that were on their way to the scrap bucket and pulled out lots of 1940s/50s bu Rosies, 49-63 Bu franklins, 40s and 50s bu Washington quarters, I pulled a 1913P Barber half from the scrap pile. He rarely searches anymore, his focus is on making a lot of money before it burst. ON the plus side he buys silver at 80 percent of melt and sells at melt. So I have gotten a lot of really nice MS and Proof Franklins for melt. He does not care about the dates anymore. So, yeah, LOTS of coins are going to the scrappers. Millions. He told me that the local refinery is backlogged right now. I have also filled a nice dansco full of Roosevelts at $2 to $2.50 apiece, regardless of date, mintmark or condition.

Perspective: We lived through this twice; the silver certificate redemption in 1968 and the silver boom in 1980. People saved SC back, figuring that since they were being redeemed, they'd have them for sale to future collectors. Guess what? The SC we would have paid $2.25 for in 1968 (and bought thousands of, if they had them) they can now get about $1.50 for from a collector, if they're lucky.

In 1980, people saved back silver coins, using many of the arguments above. When silver prices dropped (and they will drop--nothing goes up forever), they found they were holding coins that were worth less than when silver was the same price before rising.

Why? Take a collector putting together a set (or several sets) of Washington quarters. He needs the 32d+s, maybe the 37s and a couple others. Mid-79, his quarters were worth less than a buck each, early-80, these coins he paid a quarter for are now worth $5 a pop. He sells. But some refused.

Fast forward a few years, and silver prices fell. The savers want to sell, for whatever reason. The common dates are now worth a lot less than $5, because silver is down. Semi-keys like 40d, 55d, 37s, 36d, etc, are worth a premium, but it's less than they were worth before the run-up.

But how can this be? So many were melted. True, but many of the semi-keys were held back, both by collectors and dealers cherry-picking incoming sets before scrapping them. All those collectors who dumped their sets in 1980 no longer needed the semi-keys to complete them, and there were a bunch more of them in dealers' inventories.

The keys also decreased below pre-runup prices. If you dumped your collections in 1980, you don't need the 32d+s to complete them anymore. There are prolly the same amount available (doubtful anyone turned them in for $5), but there are far fewer collectors.

Finally, remember that the gubmint melted 350 million silver $ in the early 1900s (roughly three per American), yet you could still walk into any bank and order as many $1000 bags of BU dollars as you wanted for face, in the early 60s. Even today, assembling a bag of MS65 Morgans would be easy.

It all makes sense. I'm still going to hold onto the quarters and see if silver goes up any more. If it bottoms out before I unload them, then no big deal. I'll just have more for my collection.

Back to the original topic, if the price is right, I'll be ok with turning them in for melt. I may hesitate on the really special coins. Coins like Morgan CC's etc in superb condition. That would make me cry I think. Anyhoo, it's all a matter of personal choice.

My problem is that I cannot part with any of my silver coins.
I have been thinking about selling my mercs and walkers
(the few that I have are scrap) in order
to really upgrade my Kennedy half short set and maybe pick
up some mid-grade morgans or Peace dollars. But the problem
is, each time I sit down to photograph them for ebay, I stop and
just put them back into my coin table. Oh well, one day I guess haha