Recommendations Please For Selling Melt Value Silver

Why don't you sell them on ebay or to another collector? Generally you would get better prices on junk silver, and this also prevents the coinage from being melted down which is a good thing.

And I'm curious, why would someone want to but silver coins with no numistic value; to hold silver as an investment?

Because of the spot price of silver at any given time, Bullion that is .999 pure does get a premium over spot, 90% coin silver if you sell to a dealer or refiner sells for slightly less than the actual content and when you sell it to someone who is not a dealer or refiner, like Joe Blow on ebay, it may get a little premium over the actual silver content. Usually a 10% to 15% difference either way.
For example:
If a bag of quarters has $25. worth of 90% silver and spot is $25.00 you can expect to get $22.50 ish from a dealer (or less) but if you were the dealer, you could ask about $27.50.
If spot is half that at $12.50 or twice that at $50. things work the same proportionately.

So people can value and invest in junk 90% coin silver just like they do in .999 but there is always that margin over and under depending on who is the buyer and who is the seller.
Spot price is the factor.
Things work similar with .999 silver but with less of a premium. Because coin bullion is not pure, there is always what is called a "refining fee". Whether the junk silver gets melted and refined or not, it is always factored in to the price.
You will see dealers at coin shows with bags of silver coins, moving them around with no care for dates and condition. Just for weight or face value in silver coins at the price of the day.

This is sort of the problem with so called hoarding any metals or other such items. I mean you always hear buy this or that and someday it will be worth a lot. Yet so many never think about just where would you sell it? Always sounds so good in those advertisements about stuff like Gold, Silver, etc. Yet when it's your time to sell, just where do you sell it? Always was easy to buy but now sell? And then so many find they eventually loose, not gain. My avice too is to try a place like ebay. You might only make a few dollars but sure is better than nothing.

Thanks guys! Good info. I've been looking at the listings for junk silver sold listings on ebay and I don't see a big difference over melt value but at least there's the satisfaction of knowing they aren't melted down.

I am confused about selling using face value vs. just calculating the amount of silver in the coin times the spot price. I'm guessing it's a way to make it easy for the average consumer to calculate but is it really comparable? (If this is covered in someplace in general info on the forum please let me know )

@walking, chafemaster makes a good point about shipping costs.

If we take as an example selling $10 face value of U.S. silver coins, this will be 9 ounces of coins that you need to ship, which, if we factor in another 2 to 4 ounces of packing materials means you'll pay $5 to $6 to ship it by First Class package.

So, from whatever price you are able to get, you need to subtract about 14% in ebay and paypal fees, and take into account the $5-6 for shipping.

This is why some people just prefer to find a dealer who will pay a certain percentage of the spot price. It may be more efficient.

Either way, you are making pure profit, since it is silver you inherited. You don't need to care whether silver price may go up or down in the future.

to the Community!

If you live in (or near) a large city there will be at least one buyer that will pay 90-98% of spot. Fees on ebay for coins are 6%. PayPal gets another 3%. I did business with Midwest several years ago & I'm not a fan. Sending junk silver to a refinery doesn't necessarily mean the coins will be melted. Coins have a set purity & a readily established market value which makes them easy to resell without going through the hassle/expense of refining into 999 silver.