Junk Bin Silver Finds

Maybe, but I've had luck with old dates, large denominations, and toning. If you have a good eye for silver tone, you should be able to spot silver regardless of year - and lots of wear can also indicate silver.

The gulden was pretty toned when I got it - the guy at the counter noticed it right away but sold it to me regardless. I later learned the date is prior to 1967, but the colour was a dead giveaway.

The shilling was heavily worn and had a touch of yellow-brown. The colour seemed to be natural toning and it was a 193? shilling, so I guessed it would be silver from the wear and the date - the colour on that one was pretty subtle and didn't catch my eye at first.

The 1 mark is in good condition with weird toning. Most of it is light gray that looks uncleaned, but at the bottom (in the wreath) is a lovely faint red-and-green. I bought it right away because it's early German (I always pick these up, especially a 1906!), the colour was truly beautiful, and it looks pretty high-grade. I was pleasantly surprised to look it up and find its silver content later on - for all I knew, the toning was just a stain from 100+ years of being exposed to who-knows-what.

Of course, only buying underpriced silver is a terrible customer thing to do, so I also pick up interesting world coins. Another great find: AG-3 slightly impaired British 1826 half penny, it's been deeply dented once but so long ago that it's smoothed over and toned up with the rest of the coin. Always look in bulk bins!

Awesome Buys! I've gone through 2 places with Bulk foreign and have gotten ALOT of silver. Whats crazy is its a major coin shop, and a guy who specializes in PMs. Found Everything from oddball silver(Princely States, New Guinea, etc) to pretty blatant things like Canadian Quarters and Dimes.

The 1950s or 60s (British Isles are a bit earlier, '47 for the UK and '45 for Ireland) are a good general date to go by. Turn-of-the-century stuff is usually a good bet - but of course, I've found lots of "duds" too (most are still nice coins though). One was a Portuguese escudo from 1921 that had been heavily worn: it was cupronickel, but then I had been looking at soft V-nickels for a while before checking the junk bin so I had a bit of a precedence towards worn gray coins. Still a nice old addition to my collection!

I've also checked the American 90% wholesale bin (28x face for everything, yikes). At those prices I stick to older coinage. So far I've found a G-4 slightly bent at the rim 1883 Seated dime and a 1907 Barber dime: I was happy to get both.

I haven't had any luck in junk bins. I'll have to try to find something silver. I go to one coin ship and the owner has a silver testing kit so it'd be hard to fool him but maybe he doesn't test all of his coins. I know another local shop I can try too.

I got an Irish shilling for Twenty Cents a while back. Seemed pretty good to me.

Another silver krona, exactly like the other one but cleaned and 10 years older. I got it for $2, along with three other coins: a 1927 cent (not rare, but I was missing it), a 1900 1 cent from the Netherlands, and an 1884 20 rappen from Switzerland. I was convinced that the 20 rappen was silver (it was old, it had some fairly convincing tarnish in the crevasses too, and it was reasonably small), but my hopes were dashed when it stuck to a magnet. Still, a neat old coin. I didn't know they were using pure nickel in the 1800s! It even has nice high relief. Definitely a good example of what you can do with nickel if you try.

Wow! What a haul! I found this huge silver piece for only 1/12 dollars!!

Just kidding, it's tiny. At .620, it even manages to hold less silver than a pre-1922 5-cent piece, which is quite the feat.


But still, the price was right. Here's my current silver stack. It's cost me a total of $6.57 so far, and I think it's over an ounce. I'll count later.


And don't forget my mark! It was so nice I put it in a 2x2. The red on the bottom is actual toning (or actual paint, but I'm optimistic that I found a nice rainbow tone for once). Got a grade for it?