How Many Uncirculated US 90% Coins Are Out There Waiting To Be Discovered?

I don't think we'll find abundant amounts of such coins, but we'll sure find a few. And we'll sure destroy a few when we throw away trash and gramps' old stinky stuff.

For what I know, we won't find many (if any) gold coins due to the 1933 and 1934 acts on this. Silver, on the other hand... there might still be some around. But not much. For what I know, the USA was both recovering from the Great Depression and a World War for a few years after those stopped. The dollar had a completely different purchasing power than it has nowadays. For what I know, actually every coin was needed to just keep alive, in a way. Coin collecting is basically putting money on the shelf with the intention to look at it every now and then. For centuries, this was something that only the super rich could allow to do, hence numismatics is dubbed 'the hobby of kings'. It wasn't until about half a century ago that coin collecting as a hobby took off for 'the common man' and it's exactly this common man you refer to for finding hidden treasures. So, that's why I think we might find some coins (we all have small stashes of savings and sometimes we forget we have them, right?), but I don't think we'll see the market for, for example, uncirculated Morgan dollars drop within 10 years because of the huge amount of new supplies.

But these are just my thoughts.

Went to many estate auctions as a child/teen in the late-1990s to mid-2000s. Quite a few of these auctions had hoards of 90% junk silver, presumably hoarded by the deceased owners who had the opportunity to pull silver out of circulation during their lifetimes. In recent years these hoards at estate sales are getting fewer and fewer ..... so yes there is a lot of junk silver out their since people of a certain generation hoarded it when the transition to clad coins was being made but these hoards are getting to be not as commonplace over time.

And these would be the 90% Silver Proofs, I assume?

My parents have a hoard of silver. They got it from their parents and have added to it. I'm a minor silver stacker, too, so it goes on...

When you consider that the YOUNGEST you can be to have been able to accumulate a significant stash of silver from circulation is in your 70's (This assumes gathering silver from circulation in the 1964-69 years which was 50 years ago and that in order to have the available free money to be able to stash it away you would have to be at least in your 20's.) most everything is such stashes is going to be from the 1940's or later and most stuff pulled from circulation older than that is going to be well worn. The only Unc stuff is gong to be the late 50's to early 60's material. For older and beter grade older stuff you have to go back another generation to hoard put away in the 40's by people who are now in their 90's. Not a lot of those folks around anymore and most of their hoards have probably been disbursed.

As for things like great grandpaw having a roll of 1934 S dollars stashed away, unless great gradpaw was already wealthy at the time it isn't likely. A roll of dollars was 20 bucks! Now the idea of putting aside $20 may not seem like much to us today, back in 1934 you're talking the better part of a months wages for your average working man. How casually can you just put aside and forget about a months wages?

I should have asked ..... how many is considered a lot or hoard?

My dentist (retirement age) says his in-laws collected coins in the 50s and 60s. He and his wife have a file cabinet full of coins that have never been examined by someone knowledgeable about coin values -- his wife remembers very fondly her parents spending quality time coin roll hunting on the kitchen table, and she would never think of selling those coins.

How many silver coins are there waiting to be "discovered"? IMO not enough to make a difference. Sure there are plenty of "hoards" big and small that will come to light in the next 20 years or so, but there will not be enough of the rare coins to make a difference.

What I remember from my Econ and stats classes it is all based on supply and demand and averages. This is how I see it; say there are 100 of the 34-S Peace dollar in MS-65 known, a hoard is cashed in that includes 25 more of the coins in the same grade. This is a 25% increase in the avaliable supply so will this cause a drop in the price? I don't think so, I think this will cause an increase in the price as the demand for this coin far exceeds what this small increase makes avaliable. IMO in order to negatively impact the price there would need to be an increase in the order of 1,000% or greater and even then there might not be a price drop but a price increase. In the super rare coin realm a big increase in inventory will only cause an increase in demand. This is an interesting thought experiment and I have been considering this for a few days. Am I right about my prediction of a price increase? I'm not that smart so I could very well be wrong, I'm just proposing this as another possible side of the debate.

As the the question about how many coins were melted. Yes , many coins were melted and are being melted as we speak. Are there enough gone to make a difference? IMO, No. After this much time the trends are set in place. Rare coins are rare for a reason and conversely common coins are common for a reason. There are not enough 'hidden coins' waiting to come to light to make a difference. The only trend that I see being possible is a slow but steady decrease in the avaliable supply due to silver coins being melted for their silver value.