The great coin melts effect on coin totals.

I read something today that surprised me. After the big coin melts over the years some of the top silver dollar experts believe that only 15% - 17% of the entire Morgan dollar mintage remains today. That made me say WOW!

 

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That is surprising. Considering I see boat loads of Morgans everywhere from flee markets, to pawn shops, to Jewelry stores, to antique shops etc. I find that number a little hard to believe. But hey, I am not a silver dollar expert by any stretch.

 

Yeah - but they still seem readily available, with the exception of some key dates. Still a lot of coins were melted. Too bad they did not track how many and such.

 

That sounds way too low to me. More than half of the pre-'21 morgans were destroyed by the Pittman act in 1918 but almost none would have been melted in the FED melt of '69 and relatively few in the melt of 1979. Counting all the redeemed coins the real number of melts is likely in the 60% range leaving 40% of the mintage and the '21's. With attrition it's possible it could be down to the 22 to 24% survivorship area. This would be heavily weighted to the key dates and especially to the dates released since 1963.

 

That is a "wow". But how many remaining does that equate to? Morgans were minted in extreme numbers.
Lance.

 

Heck. I don't know, ask Ted Binion........oops.......can't.

 

I attribute those numbers to a book written by Adam Crum, Jeff Oxman, and Selby Ungar. It's called "CC Morgan Silver Dollars Featuring Coins From The GSA Hoard".

 

The percentage sound terrible but if you look at the total mintage from 1878 only this still leaves over 3 million as survivors just from that year alone. Extend this out for the entire series and it still is a VERY LARGE number. It is true that certain groups of coins were heavilly melted and their survival rates are below average. In another thread there was talk of a guy having 500 Morgans. I'm not too worried about the world running out of Morgans. I just want there to be enough for me to add to my collection. I have reached goal #1 and now have at least one of every year minted and am well on my way to goal #2 (2 from each year). Goal #3 (my grandfather had all except 1895 philly) will take much financial planning to acheive.

 

I guess that figure seems plausible, I thought it would be a little higher though.

About 657 million Morgans were minted. 270 million silver dollars were melted under the Pittman Act (figure almost all were Morgans). Then around 50 million dollars melted under the WWII silver act (% Peace to Morgans unknown). That accounts for a little less than 50% of the total mintage melted. About another 200 million or so melted/lost would put the total left around the 15-17% mark. Of course that means there's still around 100 million Morgans left today.

 

Which is still a hefty amount considering we are the only ones lookin for morgans, your average guy is not. Morgans are plentiful and because of the amount you see today as a collector, its kind of hard to believe.

Just to put into perspective, 15% of an 8.5 mil common date would equate to 1,275,000 morgans. Looking at that figure i can definitely believe the statement, as this is just an example as one year/mintmark common date!

 

Definitely sounds plausible, because 15-17% is still a lot of coins as others have stated.

 

I'm not worried about the millions of common dates or ones that look like they've been cleaned with a belt sander. The problem lies with rare VAMs of non-key dates slipping though and being melted. Not everyone is well versed on identifying VAMs old or new.

 

Do you really think US junk silver, especially silver dollars, are being melted still? Even in 1979 the silver dollars I saw were not being melted, just being sold for melt. Bags of old silver dollars even back then were a premium item.

I hear a lot about world coins being melted in this country, but I would be surprised if non-damaged US coins were being melted still. Considering the costs to smelt, I would think old US coins, (again especially silver dollars), would be a higher value than the silver obtained from them.

What would be interesting would be to go through some bags of junk being put together today. I bet there are better coins in there than you think at these higher silver prices. I loved buying bags put together in 1979-80 and going through them when silver had come down. All kinds of "better" coins in them.

 

I have the same question as medoraman, given the costs and margins, is it actually more profitable for someone to buy silver coins and have them melted rather than just resell the junk silver as it is? What is the melt motivation?

 

It's the quick and easy way to raise cash rather than go to the time and trouble of putting coins up for sale/auction.

 

But I regularly see bags of junk silver in local gold & silver stores. What do they do with it when they melt, sell it as bullion? So they buy as bullion, melt it and resell it as bullion? I don't understand where the price motivation is to add the extra cost of melting.

 

There is a small pawn/antique shop by me that admittedly melts junk silver. Now I know that's one small shop by me but multiply that that from around the country. Point being, it does occur.

 

I don't doubt that it happens, I just don't understand the economy of it.