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 Replies: 9 / Views: 2,647 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2541 Posts |
This topic may have already been posted so I apologize if it has. Has anyone bought $1000 bags of silver coins to check for any kinds of varieties or rarer dates?  It could be an expensive proposition since they are currently selling for $13,000 or so and being bought for $12,400 on one website I was looking at. You'd have to either have the price of silver right or find some really nice stuff to get your make back your $600 spread. |
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
10982 Posts |
I've bought a couple $100 bags in the past and when they say "junk", they mean "junk".
These bags have been searched numerous times and most of the coins are beat up Good to Fines.
You could get lucky but these bags are for silver investors, not coin collectors.
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
2541 Posts |
Figures... I can't imagine I was the first one to have this idea! Did anyone try this in the late 1960's or early 1970's when these coins were first being put into bags and traded above face value?
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
10982 Posts |
Quote:
Did anyone try this in the late 1960's or early 1970's... Back then silver wasn't much over $1/oz. Kind of strange to think about but imagine buying a $1,000 bag of junk silver for $1,100 and it weighs 55 pounds! I don't know when these bags became popular, but I imagine in was the mid-1970's at the earliest. Q. David Bowers reported in a book that he used to buy $1,000 bags of BU Morgan's and sell them for $1,050! That was in the early 1960s! |
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
20753 Posts |
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Figures... I can't imagine I was the first one to have this idea! Did anyone try this in the late 1960's or early 1970's when these coins were first being put into bags and traded above face value?
Way, way back then I used to just go to a bank and get bags of Pennies(Cents), Nickels and sometimes Dimes. Can't remember the cost of the Nickels or Dimes but the Cents were $50. I remember filling several Jefferson nickel Albums from that and complete. Back then no one really wanted Jefferson nickels I think since it was so easy to find all of them. Similar with Roosevelt dimes and no one really thought to much of they were Silver or anything. Of course this would mean only until about the late 60's to early 70s. Even then though the Cents were just not great for finding anything fantastic. |
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
11951 Posts |
My dad bought 3 $1000 bags ... about 20 years ago .. paid $3300 for them. Two of dimes one quarters. He is going to open them soon. I just bought him 400 dime tubes, he is just waiting for a time when he can have them out for a day or two to sort them, with no one around. Then take them to the SDB at the bank. I have been wondering what coins may be in them for years ... I should know sometime soon.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2797 Posts |
Ah the memories. Dad would bring home $50 bags of cents back in the late 50's and early 60's. We would sort through them over the weekend and dad would take the remainder back to the bank. It was a family activity for all five of us.
I was around in the mid-60's when the Federal Reserve was advertising those $1000 bags of BU Morgans that had been sitting for years. Cost for a $1000 bag was $1000. Unfortunately $1000 was too much money back then for our family. Someone who picked up a bag and held it until now would probably break-even due to inflation. Most bags were opened immediately and the gems were picked out. The remainder were sold in lots for melt. I also remember some devious folks would burn a small hole in the canvas bag then manipulate a coin until they could determine the date and mintmark. If it was a common date 1886, 1887, 1900, 1921, etc. they would resell the bag to another speculator. Folks learned quickly to check for burn holes.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
731 Posts |
I purchased a "lot" of 40 Liberty nickels once for about 10 bucks on ebay... came away with a VG-8 1912S. And my only motivation for buying the lot was for fillers for a few sets I was assembling... |
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
17884 Posts |
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Did anyone try this in the late 1960's or early 1970's when these coins were first being put into bags and traded above face value? Better time would have been in the early 80's. A LOT of stuff that came into shops during the big silver melt of 1979 got shoved into these bags without examination because there just wasn't time to go through it. I had the chance to glance through a couple of those bags back then, I found seated material, an 1895-O dime and some other better date material. |
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Valued Member
United States
487 Posts |
My dad just bought a bag of quarters and I went through them for him. I found about 60 SLQ with dates, 1853 seated AG and 25 S mints in the 30's. That comes out to about 100 more than I found in the bag I bought 2 years ago. If you do buy the bags go through them. The bag I bought had $11.25 in 1976's and the one my dad got had 8 clad, 1 80% canadian and a merc. Both companies made good on the shortages.
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Replies: 9 / Views: 2,647 |
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Posted 01/05/2010 4:09 pm
