Empty Cool Whip Containers

Junk silver does not necessarily mean that circulated or lower grade, it means that it has no significant numismatic value over the scrap metal value. A Mint State 1964 dime isn't really worth anymore than an XF 1964 dime. They are both just junk silver. Back right before the Hunt brothers ran up silver in 1979 a dealer I knew was sitting on three hundred unopened mint bags of 1883 O silver dollars. He had been trying to sell them off individually at $15 each and sales were SLOW. After all it was a common date and once someone had one he wasn't likely to want another. It was going to take forever to move them. Then silver was run up to $50 an once and they were worth over $35 for melt value. Well if collectors weren't interested in them at $15 selling them at $40 or more was going to take even longer. But the smelter would pay him $35 each tomorrow. The sudden move up in silver had made them basically "junk silver" and he shipped all 300 bags off to the smelter. (He had been part of the group that bought the Continental Bank hoard of silver dollars, over 1,500 bags of dollars.)