My Dealer Is Sending BU Silver To The Melting Pot.

You'd be surprized how long this has been going on.

It is a shame that this is happening, but that is the state of the market.

I completely agree with weavus135 and was talking to a dealer on sunday about this kind of thing. He is a collector as well, not a silver hoarder. He said he thinks its a shame that people can't even sell silver coins cheaper so collectors like me can get their hands on them. He said other dealers who want to hoard the silver, or flip the coins at the same show buy the coins up before customers are even in the doors. Needless to say he gave me some nice deals on some coins. He also said he hates that his kids are going to grow up not being able to buy "junk" silver coins because they are all being melted down. I love me some "junk" silver. It has more character then BU examples in my opinion.

The same thing happened in the early 80's as the price of metal exceeded the numismatic value. I feel it is a shame to melt coins. Why sent them to be melted any way? 90% silver coins are widely recognized, what is the reason for melting them down into a brick?

The problem is that coin collectors are actually contributing to this by buying so much new bullion silver. If you're investing in silver, you can buy bars or rounds or bullion coins like silver eagles, or you could get rolls or bags of "junk" silver coins. If people bought bags of old silver coins for their hoards instead of getting rolls and boxes of silver eagles, there would be less demand to melt old coins.

90% US coins have well known weights, purity and authenticity, so there's no issue of liquidity versus bullion items (and they're superior to privately minted bullion in this regard). They're also more likely to retain value if the bottom drops out of the silver market, as they still have numismatic value. You can always melt the coins later if the demand for the metal is there, but you can't ever unmelt them if there is demand for the coins.

I've only just started collecting and I am struggling to find coins and I am horrified at what the world is coming to melting coins when there is someone out there trying to find it or a child trying to start collecting

I remember when the mint released the CC dollars in the early 1970's. I am sure someone will correct me but I think I remember them going for about $30 ea.

I remember the Hunt brothers trying to corner the silver market in the late 1970's and how that went. I think silver might have reached $50/Troy Oz but I was in no position to speculate so I didn't play. I do recall some local idiots buying it on margin and getting burned when the margin calls came in. I did not cash my gems in.

I vaguely remember that silver was about $4/Troy Oz sometime in 2000. I tried to buy what I could afford but life had me spending money on more valuable things (children).

I remember that through this all I kept the little numismatic gems I had as did those who kept "Grandpa's coins" because they were convinced that the coins were far more valuable than what the local dealer buying at melt would give them.

I will admit that I did get rid of my culls when the market was up on silver and turned them into gold. I don't know what happened to them nor do I care. There are few numismatists living who would care about them and future ones would want better specimens.

Time will inevitably reduce the pool of BU's and those that care will have passed theirs onto those that care.

The only way to ensure longevity on our modern coins is to set their issue face value well over their melt value.

I'm not sure this is what we want but it is the thing to do.

I have some Canadian $20 Calgary Silver rounds. There is more than one reason why I still have them even though I was tempted to turn them when silver was up a few months ago.

A US dealer offered me melt value for them 2000. I walked out of his shop and never went back. I think he is out of business.