Does Anyone Track This?

That is what I expected, now how does the Numismatic market judge the amount of coins still in circulation? I know it is a tough question to answer, I am just trying to get a handle on the fact that in five years someone will say "there are only approximately 500,000 XXXXXXX coins still available" How can that be determined? If anyone knows.

The coin shops I help out at, send a small plastic bag (maybe pint size bag) of U.S. coins to be melted, about once a month. All of these coins are worn slick or damaged.

U.S. coins that are AG/G or better are put into silver buckets .. to be sold to customers.

They do send off more volume of silver foreign coins. Also .. silver jewelry and sterling silver sets (forks/spoons)

You can take tours of the melting facilities, from the ones I have seen, they are not taking count of what is being process .. only the weight.

There maybe be some dealers sending in better coins .. I here stories .. but who really knows.

Nobody keeps track of dates/mintmarks that are melted. Not even the US Mint, back when it was part of its job to withdraw and melt down old silver coins to turn them into new coin, kept track of which dates/mintmarks it was melting. Most of the people actually doing the melting aren't educated enough about coins to know whether they're melting rarities or not.

The price of a coin will, as always, be determined by supply and demand. In a free market, supply can even be estimated if the demand and price are known. Certainly "relative supply" should be easy to calculate, even if the absolute supply remains obscure.

If you want to save as many coins as possible, do your bit to increase demand: "put your money where your mouth is", and be prepared to pay substantially above spot silver price for "junk silver" coins.

Nor did they have the time to look for rarities. They were not putting coins one by one into a smelting pot. Ther were probably by the bag full

The amount of coins being melted is completely impossilbe to know. I've seen Electricians take cable and wire to smelters and throw in piles of Pennies. At most flea markets I know of, jewlers take and melt all Silver coins they get their hands on and no one keeps any records of any of that. At most of the Smelters by me, they are manned by Mexicans that have no idea of anything Numismatical. So many coins are melted all the time and no records are kept anywhere. I would wonder how many old coin collections were just dumped into those melting vats.
So everyone is complaining about counterfeiters and yet they are replacing the coins that we melt all the time.

90% silver coins are NOT being melted by the refiners as everybody believes. Yes, they are bought and sold based on their melt value but, there is enough of a demand for 90% coins that it is not practical to melt them. When 90% silver coin is sent to a refiner it is bagged and resold by the bag. The bags contain $1,000.00 face value. The bags can be mixed dimes, quarters and halves or they can be all dimes, all quarters, or all halves or mixed however the customer orders. Silver dollars are bagged separately from the lower denominations. The 90% silver that actually is melted is the worn slick, holed, bent, or otherwise severely damaged. Since the bags contain coins with varying amounts of wear the rate at which the value is determined is .715 ASW versus .72 if they were all uncirculated.

In the past there was a time where the coins were actually melted but not so much anymore because too many people want 90% silver coins instead of .999 silver bars or rounds. I know people who won't buy .999 and all they buy is the 90% solely because it is hard U. S. currency and the bullion bars are not.

I sell coins and collectibles at local flea markets and can't get enough 90% to sell to my customers yet I can take several 1 ounce .999 bars and still have some left when I go home at the end of the day.

Ed
ANA LM-3175

This is a great discussion, but now I'm really confused. I thought these coins were being melted. Hopefully someone can answer a couple of questions.

Why does the refiner get to make the business decision not to melt and makes a better profit by bagging and reselling? Wouldn't someone along the way make that decision as part of their business? I though that refiners just buy and melt!

Second question. After a retail coin shop, pawn shop, etc.. buys the 90% silver from individuals where do they sell it? To brokers or some middle man? Or direct to the refinery?