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 Replies: 23 / Views: 2,764 |
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Moderator
 United States
56855 Posts |
At what grade does a junk silver coin become more then just junk silver? Fine and less or very fine and less. I hate to sell a common silver XF40 coin and only get melt value. It seems like dealers only pay a premium for key dates and semi keys and melt everything else. At some point it's going to be very hard to put a set of silver coins together in anything less the AU. What are your thoughts on this? Thanks all,
John1 
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Valued Member
United States
228 Posts |
John1: The relentless upward push of silver in value, will soon make anything but key coins - just small slabs of silver that happen also be coins! You're right, at some point in the distant future, putting together sets of coins like Roosevelt and Mercury dimes - will be more difficult. A large % of the time, when I buy silver dimes - many of the coins are XF or better... (some of the Rosie's are even UNC). The fact that the coins are made of SILVER, dwarfs (or will soon dwarf), the fact that some of the coins actually had an independent numismatic value. These are my opinions. I'm sure others will disagree - (see following posters) Best, LastGold |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2661 Posts |
The big melt is why I am saving any and all silver I find these days. I may not live to see it, but some day these "common dates" may become harder to find than keys at the rate these are being sold to dealers buying and reselling to the refiners.
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New Member
16 Posts |
My "junk Silver" mostly consists of well worn date and mint mark, Like stated before the silver content is starting to outweigh the numismatic value of all but "key dates" and even some of those are only getting pushed by the price of the silver in the coin.
I like that some collectors are looking long term and yes the big melt will result in some common dates becoming more valuable. The key to this is the words long term. The markets have to settle down and the coin community has to see what is gone to the melting pot, this could take alot of years to figure out.
I'll stick with nice clean collector grade coins and keep my "stash" of VF+ Silver for the future.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1590 Posts |
I like to think outside the box. I collect all MS 40% halves. NO ONE thinks about saving these when going to the scraper! I think Tim is right, one day a lot of these coins that 'everyone' is scraping because the made a billion of them are going to be downright rare, just because most of them were scrapped. Remember there are some fairly high mintage Morgans that are rare today because of scraping!
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Valued Member
United States
296 Posts |
Just to clear the air a bit. There is a lot more hoarding going on than "melting"...
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Valued Member
United States
361 Posts |
I am 48 and don't think I will live to see the day when common date, circulated silver coins jump much in value due to melting. Having said that, I believe that maybe 50-75 years from now thet will grow in value IF silver does not rise enough to still only make them worth melt at that time........Of course that would make them more valuable just the same , would it not? Does this post make any sense at all?
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Pillar of the Community
United States
3294 Posts |
Heck right now, I am buying Roosevelt proofs from the 50s and 60s as junk silver, so grade really can get washed out with the rising tide of silver prices.
Edited by nod2003
08/05/2011 08:44 am
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Valued Member
United States
397 Posts |
I'm still getting XF Mercs out of my dealer's junk box.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
3402 Posts |
Bowfin makes a good point, there is more hoarding going on then melting and many of these coins will be back in Numismatic hands when the precious metals bubble bursts.
KK
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Moderator
United States
188660 Posts |
Quote:
At what grade does a junk silver coin become more then just junk silver? I think it really depends on the coin and the market for it. For example, the grade will be different for a common Morgan dollar than a common Roosevelt dime. Quote:
The big melt is why I am saving any and all silver I find these days. I may not live to see it, but some day these "common dates" may become harder to find than keys at the rate these are being sold to dealers buying and reselling to the refiners. I feel the same way. I am keeping all nickels and copper cents for the same reason. My contribution to the future.  |
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
12437 Posts |
Quote:
Just to clear the air a bit. There is a lot more hoarding going on than "melting"...
Exactly, this is not a repeat of 1979-1980 when coins were loaded into the melting pots by the bag. Face value bags have become a very popular silver investment vehicle, my local dealer currently has a waiting list for them(supplied from walk-in silver purchases). Here is a sampling of what you could find in one of those bags- VG Barber halves, VG-F SLQs, EF-AU Walking Libertys, AU-MS Mercs and Roosies, AU-MS Franklins, and even some low grade Seated Liberty coins. |
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Valued Member
United States
466 Posts |
no silver is junk silver to me. I roll search about all of my finds and every piece of silver I find is cherished as much as the 1916 D mercury head dime someone just spent $1,000 on. I love the oldness, scarceness, and hunt of silver. Silver is silver and no coin is considered junk to me. If you have any junk silver coins I will gladly give you my address and take them off your hands. Offer is up for anyone!
I hate the term junk silver, plus with silver so high it seems like the premiums for common silver dates are all gone thus wouldn't common date silver be a better and more accurate term?
interesting
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
20753 Posts |
Quote:
no silver is junk silver to me. I roll search about all of my finds and every piece of silver I find is cherished as much as the 1916 D mercury head dime someone just spent $1,000 on. I love the oldness, scarceness, and hunt of silver. Silver is silver and no coin is considered junk to me. If you have any junk silver coins I will gladly give you my address and take them off your hands. Offer is up for anyone!
I hate the term junk silver, plus with silver so high it seems like the premiums for common silver dates are all gone thus wouldn't common date silver be a better and more accurate term?
interesting
 You just saved me from typing all the same thing as what you said. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1391 Posts |
"Junk silver is an informal term used in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia for any silver coin which is in fair condition and has no numismatic or collectible value above the bullion value of the silver it contains."
Junk just means it fluctuates depending on the price of silver and not the numismatic value. It is junk as a collectible coin. That is all. If you don't believe that I've got a bunch of old quarters warn to a washer almost that I'd like to sell at mint premiums.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1590 Posts |
Hoarding? I used to think that. I can only speak to the town I live in in Ohio and my hometown in Ca I visit all the time. I have a good relationship with the dealers in both towns. With the run up in Silver; these dealers are being inundated with folks selling their silver. At the same time these dealers are telling me that more than more than 95 percent of this silver is being melted. In the last two years alone over 400 million ounces of silver have been scraped. Since 2001 more than 1.8 billion ounces of silver have been reclaimed ( source: World Silver Survey 2011). By the way according to the same source ( which is blatently bullish silver), supply outstripped demand by 178 million ounces, which should tell you something about the disconnect between supply and demand philosophies and actual market prices.
There ARE silver hoarders,but they only save a small percentage of the silver turned in for scrap. All of my connections in the scrap/dealer industry agree that most of the silver coins they take in are MELTED.
If only 20 percent of all recycled silver is derived from scrap coins then we still have 360 million ounces worth of scrapped coins to account for. Thats the equivalent of 460 million Morgans;or 920 million halves; 1.84 billion quarters;or 4.6 billion dimes. Ohio Precious Metals LLC recently reported that half of its intake is due to coins and flateware. They reported that a single coin dealer brought in more than 200,000 ounces in March. So you can see my numbers are probably low. If the trend continues for another 10 years and the numbers of scrapped coins increase then 10 years from now we could well approach 1 billion ounces of scrapped coins. That would be 1.3 billion morgans ( exceeds mintage), 2.6 billion Halves, 5.2 billion quarters or 13 billion dimes. Not including of course the Hundreds of millions scrapped in the decades before 2000.
Simple math folks. While Billions of coins minted are a lot, it is not an infinite number; and has already been reached with the total historical count of coins melted. Make no mistake probably half of all silver coins ever produced have been melted, with another 20 percent still in the ground somewhere.
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Replies: 23 / Views: 2,764 |
Posted 08/04/2011 6:55 pm
