How fast are the 90% silver coins getting melted away?

Barbers were still apparently circulating a bit in the early 1960's when silver started getting hoarded - my grandparents had quite a few of them in the silver hoard - I still have them. The coolest roll find was an '09-O half.

 

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What's sad is that the gov't takes all they can find, (collectible items), melts them, then mints and resells them as gov't issued collectibles....

 

They sure did in the 80's. The government stockpile of silver was the catalyst of the ASE program. They created it to get rid of all of the silver they were sitting on.

At least its the taxpayers getting the profit versus a private entity. It helps a little.

 

It may help, but I'd rather the gov't keep the coinage it took and sell it as it was made...who knows what rare and unique items have been lost to gov't confiscation over the years.
I'd much rather have a couple of old Franklins then a silver bar....as I'm sure most collectors would.

 

That and also depends on the dealer/shop you go to. I know one guy here around Chicago keeps everything and sells them in a bargain/cull bucket to pick through much like wheaties. Another saves them and bags them for "investors" that want full silver bags of mixed, quarters, halfs etc. In fact I was in the shop when he did a 70K deal with a guy all 86 on up gold and silver eagles. A third shop unless they are rare dates mintmarks or hard to come by they go right off to be melted.

 

My only question sir is how do you know they are physically melted? There is a huge firm in TX that buys bags of silver from around the country, then sells them to buyers looking for bags. "Off to be melted" may very well mean being sold to this dealer and the coins never see a metling pot.

 

As far as I know the way the ASE and AGE programs work the act says the silver and gold have to be "virgin". They didn't use melted down barbers or seated series etc. coins. Commemorative silver's maybe but ASE/AGE no. That's why in 09 they limited production to only bullion because they had trouble getting silver that hadn't already been a bar, round or coin.

 

IDK about the source of the silver when the US got it, but I know for sure the ASE program was purchasing the US stockpile of silver when it was started. I believe sometime in the early 90's they ran out of US silver and started buying on the open market. Do you know for sure that when they were buying US owned silver it had to be "virgin". I am sure they put that into the act to help US silver miners, but I simply do not know if that applied to US owned silver that started the program.

Chris

 

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I guess I was confusing silver for gold...or maybe The Pittman Act

 

Don't know if this interests anybody. But there's an interesting article that broke today on Coin World's site about what happened to coinage in 1964 & 1965 when the composition change occurred. I read the link through Coinflation's news threads.

 

In fact in 1981/82 almost 75% of the national store of silver had been sold under Reagan. In 1982-1983 HR47 Statue of Liberty-Ellis island commemorative coin act was enacted to deal with the remaining national defense stock pile of silver. AKA commemorative coins. It wasn't until 1985 that Title 2 of Public Law 99-61 entitled Liberty coin act 31 U.S.C. subsection 5112 was put into effect. AKA Silver and Gold eagle programs. Also the act had to be reworked in 2002 due to sever shotages of ANY silver virgin or otherwise in Fort Knox. BIG Thank you to Wikipedia..lol.