There Is A Silver Bandit "Plague" Sweeping The Nation !

Oh I think that there will probably be silver out there for quite some time.

The high silver prices will get a lot of non-coin collectors to take their silver coins to the bank and deposit them (UGH!). The recession also will cause people to dip into old change jars and pay for groceries/gas with change.

And you still will get folks that inherit coins and deposit them into the bank, think they aren't worth anything because they just don't know better.

And you will get kids dipping into their parent's coins and spending them.

And occasionally, like what happened to me, you get someone who burglarizes your house, steals your coin collection and then spends it like regular cash or deposits it to the bank and into one of those coin change machines (Coinstar).

So I don't think the silver will dry up completely.

Maybe someone with longevity in collecting can comment on whether silver dried up from circulation during the 79-80 silver boom. I doubt that happened, though.

Don't give up hope. There will be dry spells and spells where you feast. I had both a recent feast (two solid rolls of AU/BU 40% silver JFK halves) and famine ($1000 fed boxes in halves had ZERO silver).

I just grabbed an "order" of a Fed Box that came in today from my bank.....so .......I'm interested to see what's there ! My city and about 9-10 surrounding cities are CLEANED OUT OF SILVER......I know..... I've checked "every" bank!!
Ahhhh.......I remember when I was getting 90% silvers from different banks (i got a bunch of em') and then it changed to mostly 40% .........and now I'm lucky if $486.00 will produce TWO 40% (that was my last run by the way !)
I keep hitting other people's "dump sites" I fear, but there are NO NEW BANKS TO HIT ANYMORE ! Not at least without driving a ways to find em'. I'll have an opportunity to check some more a couple hour drive away this weekend to visit family, but I'm just NOT liking my chances anymore ......

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The high silver prices will get a lot of non-coin collectors to take their silver coins to the bank and deposit them

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I dont understand your reasoning here. What does the spot price of silver have to do with people taking coins to a bank? The bank won't give you silver value for them, only face which has no bearing on silver content. It would be much more likely that people would take coins to a bullion dealer when silver prices are high, not take them to a bank

Silver in everything but half dollars virtually dried up in 1965-66 after silver was no longer used in coinage except for half dollars. In the mid-late 70s, half dollar rolls were 50-75% silver. By the mid 80s, it was down to 10-25%. This is anecdotal evidence from my dad who is a life-long spender of half dollars and is representative of Southern Illinois during those time periods. I would say that the current average is ~5% or less for most areas and falling fast.

It is not really a question of circulating silver drying up completely because it won't for the reasons you listed- there will always be a few floating around. The real question is when does it dry up so much that it is a waste of time to actively search for silver like it is now for dimes and quarters? I think that time will come in the next 5-10 years.

BIOKEMIST6 ..........
I didn't quite get that "quote" from "Mycrob" either.........no one will take their silver coins to a bank once silver goes up AT ANYTIME ! There, you'll only get face value ! One would never do that under any circumstances !
In fact.....If took one of my $50.00 .999 pure Gold Buffalo's down to the bank......... They'd give me $50.00 face value on it instead of the $900.00 + that it's worth, or a $44.00 proof Silver Dollar......the bank would give me a dollar for it !
Mycrob.......did you mispeak ?

I have a solution! When ever you find more then one piece of silver in a box, intentionally put one back in the coins you take to dump. Then there should always be a few pieces of silver plaoting around. If you find five pieces, put one back! The future CRHers will thank you!

your chances of finding silver are actually increasing as the economy worsens, so if theres a ressecion silver frequency is high, if a bull market the incentive to dump is low so silver frequency is low

There is still silver out there in those half dollar boxs . On box Feb 18 2008 from Cwi or feds. I found two franklins aslong with serval 40% in there. 5 boxes I went thru . I came out with 18 dollars face on pre 1969 coins.

Every fed box or Brinks box I ever bought In last year I always found least one silver coin in there. On boxs I bought I got nothing was 7 old boxs that were Hand wraped or repacked rolls. These 7 boxs was not factory sealed and reused. It was anothers person dumps that Loomis should sent to feds becides selling them to my bank.

An totol of 846.9 million 1965 thru 1969 silver coins were minted aslong with 433 million on 1964 silver coins. I dont know figures before 1963. They made over 1 billion on those. There are 300 million in usa living here . It take every person living the usa just to get maybe 1 or 2 silver coins each to run out. I dont have clue on how many were melted down.

To tell you the truth if you want large amount maybe 1000 dollars worth silver or 100 bucks face. You need buy Maybe 20K to 50K worth Fedboxs from feds to get it after I went thru 15 boxs or more in last year. Those guys geting those large amounts of silver are going thru maybe 50 to 150 boxs per monlth on those. They work very hard buying 5k to 20k worth boxs at any given time.

If you want silver you need buy large amount say 5 to 10 boxs per week to get it. Small boxes like say 1 box per week will waste your time and gas to try to find it.

Reminds me I need to dump maybe 6 boxs and reordor another 6 or 10 boxes again. Those silver coins found in those 6 boxes are onley worth 100 bucks or less melted down. It was like 17 bucks face on silver and I spent 3000 dollars and waited an week for them. Slave Labor for sure and spent that much on gas buying them. Its beter than no keepers . I do it since I love playing with half dollars is why and I love it if can build set or install an proof or whatever in my Dansco. I enjoy and its fun.

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