How Much Go's To The Melting Pot?

I bet we lose some, don't know how much, but some for sure. Actullay found a few decent 36d and 55d quarters in the junk bin, I would hate to see those get melted.

Most of the dealers I have talked to at coin shows say they buy & sell junk silver as bullion (rather than getting their profit from a melter), but I suspect that their behaviour is the exception not the rule.

I admit I am biased. I do not talk to dealers that appear more interested in the profit than the coins; that is, I avoid the ones with the large sign saying "Buying all Gold & Silver coins!" and selling nothing.

nnnnnnnnnnnooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!1

I wonder how much of it actually gets melted too. I'm sure a lot of dealers send it to be melted, but do the refiners actually melt it or resell it as junk silver? I saw one place that offered refining, 90% silver or better, 85% of spot, but for US silver coins they paid 95% of spot. Are coins really that much easier to refine? APMEX's buy price right now is 97.5% of spot. That 2.5% difference is $500 on a $1000 face bag. Instead of actually refining it they can flip it for a quick $500 and skip the costs they would incur by actually melting it.

I also see a lot of slicks, no dates, holed, and otherwise cull/worse than cull coins for sale. If lots of coins are being melted, I'd expect these would have been the first to go.

This is why I am hoarding all of my nickels and copper cents. Not for profit, but to save them from these clueless recyclers!

I would be ok with non AU/MS 1964 JFK halves, 1965-1969 40% Halves, FDR dimes, common Washington quarters, and many G/VG Walkers/mercury dimes in the more common years. There is no way that all of those are every going to be able to be in series/type sets.

They are super common and making them into some nice pretty eagles :)

I hope your kidding. Smelters everywhere are melting anything metal and there really is no such thing as the Metal Police watching them either. Electicians take Copper or Aluminum wire and cable to smelters and throw in Copper pans, any coins and anything else that is metal. Most smelters around me have employees that can nardly speak English and have no idea of what USA coinage is except it melts. There are pickup trucks roaming through streets and alleys all the time picking up anything metal and taking those to the smelters and if there are coins in the mess, so what, they are metal.
I asked a few of them I know if they ever looked at any coins for rare ones. They always smile and say something like your kidding of course.
Everyone should remember that probably the largest percentage of this or any country's populace has no idea of what any coin is worth Numismatically. Actually if you want to see what that really means, just ask anyone what Numismatic means. People melting coins do not know coin values and could care less. And it's not just coins. Most people could care less about rare, old, collectable items.
This is why over our history people have burned books, torn down old structures, leveled entire civilazations, smashed anything in their way. The amount of people that care about the past or anything rare is the exception to the rule.