Pre 1964 junk silver: how much is existing today?

Pre 1964 junk silver how much is existing today?

Is there any estimate of how many were there in let's say 1965 and how much has left not melted in 2013?

What banking system did with all those coins that they took from circulation?

How much they sent for melting?

What they did with the rest?

Where are all those 90% bags on dealers' shelves coming from?

etc...

Any information about the topic is welcome.


Thanks

 

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We have the mint numbers, but there have been a lot of melts since then. There is still a lot around, but some of the types that were considered "junk silver" when I started buying have now moved into the "mildly numismatic" category.

Walking liberties and standing liberty quarters are good examples of this. They were sold at junk prices, but now sell for a buck or two more than comparable coins.

 

are there any rough estimates of how many of the coins has survived?
like 10 mln oz ... or 1 bil oz ...

or information like "in let's say 1974 all silver coin withdrawn from circulation was melted" ...

 

Howdy,

Geez, tough question. The reason being is how much 90% is being hoarded by not only folks like us but the survivalists. Pre-1964 US silver is perhaps the primary acquisition by the survivalists - for all the reasons we know. Divisable, relatively inexpensive, fungible, and impossible to confiscate.

How much is in whitman folders in a box in the attic? Mostly G, VG, F and probably missing the keys.

I'd love to know too, but so hard to even estimate.

peace,

rono

 

I am not sure of an estimate. They were never officially withdrawn, but hoarded due to Gresham's Law. In the 70's you would occasionally find one in circulation, but most disappeared in the late 60's from circulation.

Many were melted, its true, but also many have always just been "junk silver" and bought and sold as such.

Btw, small nitpick, I just hate how so many of these threads say "pre 1964". Its "pre 1965", especially since 1964 is THE most common date junk silver coin.

 

Just as an aside, next year would be the 50 yr ann. of the final year of said "junk silver". Amazing how time just flies on by.

 

From 1968, possibly late 1967, through about 1971 all of the dimes, quarters, and halves that were surplus at the banks and were shipped back tot he Fed were run through a machine that separated the silver from the clad. The clad went into storage for return to circulation when banks requested coins. The silver was returned to the mint for melting. (At the same time the official line from the government was that there was no reason to hoard the silver coins and that the silver and clad coins would circulate side by side for many many years to come.) The only reason the Fed stopped doing this was because the percentage of silver coins still in circulation had dropped so low it was no longer practical to run the machines. So while there was no "official" withdrawal, in actual practice the government did do their best to withdraw as much as they could "unofficially".

 

As usual, great information and great post. Thank you.

 

I can tell a lot has been independently melted. I know a few dealers that routinely send it off by the bag to refiners. This has been going on for many, many years. Nonetheless, silver was so widely hoarded there seems to still be a deep supply.

 

Great info! I cannot imagine why the government wouldn't have done that when there were enough silver coins still in circulation to make it worth it.

 

When I was a young teen in 1971 (13), I saw some silver in circulation. For no other reason than I didn't like the look of the clad coins, I saved some silver in circulation. I didn't earn very much $ except doing odd jobs as a kid.

I noticed that in 1972/73 that there was hardly any silver in circulation. I bought some silver "junk" from a local coin dealer at $1.35 per $1 of face. I paid a little more ($1.50 per $1 face) for Barber quarters/halves and about $2 for a Morgan Silver $. I ended up putting my spare earnings into buying silver.

I wanted my mother to buy a $1000 face bag of junk silver for $1350 in 1972 but my mother was worried that I would "lose" the coins. Too bad I could not convince her I would not lose the coins. I would have have her take the funds out of the college account that my parents saved up for college that I started in the fall of 1976. $1350 was quite alot of $ in 1972. ( more than 2 yrs of college tuition at a public college at the time).

In early (Jan 1980), I sold $100 face of my silver and paid for more than two years of college!! (I sold some of my excess silver for 23 times face!!). I told my mother (since deceased) about what I did and she thought I would just blow my $$! That sale saw me thru part of grad school as the $2300 bought almost 2 yrs of college tuition even during the inflation of the late 1970's/early 1980's!

I still have about $50-$100 face left mostly over from buys from the coin dealer in 1972. Those coins (barbers, morgans, mercuries, etc ) filled up part of my coin books. I got rid of my worse "junk" of my junk silver coins when I sold in 1980. They did not care what the coins looked like in 1980--just that it was the 90% silver coins back then.

Bottom line: I noticed that starting in late 1971 that it was getting harder to see silver in circulation. Too bad that in the mid 70's that I lost interest in coins and went to stamp collecting. My stamps did not do as well! Oh well, I had fun with both hobbies. :smile

 

Conder, that's great info.

one question though
does mints have their own refining/melting facilities? I mean the one that melted those 90% coins.
if YES what/where/how many are there government owned melting/refining facilities?


can we find information from FED or other structure what they did with those refined/melted coins?
it should be at least 100 000 tonnes of silver if not more ... but they are very hard to find )

 

isn't melting u.s. coinage illegal??

 

Its illegal to melt copper coins. Silver coins there is no law against melting them.

 

They did at that time, they no longer do. At that time the mints had their own foundries and melted their own metals, cast ingots and rolled theor own strip for cents and five cent until the late 70's. The assay offices would still have such facilities but the last one Assay Office of New York closed in 1982. Now they would probably contract out for it to be done.

Only cents and non-silver five cent pieces. From the early 60's until around 1972 melting silver coins was also illegal. Once the amount of silver in circulation dropped so low that it was no longer worth pursuing and its complete loss would not have an effect on commerce the melting ban was dropped.

 

Conder, thanks again!
Do you have any information of what happened to the melted silver?
Is it stored somewhere or was it sold to public/private entities?

 

Thanks for sharing chemist and the great info from condit.

You're story is much like mine although I'm older. I was running Ponderosa Steak Houses in the Cleveland, Akron and later, Monroe, MI areas from 73-77 and bought a huge amount of 90% out of the change at face value. When this gig ended in '77 I went back to MSU to finish my degree in Econ paid for mostly by GIBill augmented by me selling into the Hunt Bros bull market. For a poor old vietnam vet on GI Bill living at home, I partied well.

Peace,

rono

 

Some more question: Who did get withdrawn coins: FED or US Treasury?
Is there any way to know what they did with all those coins? Melted and saved as silver bars ... or just put in bags to store?

 

More than. The u.s. dollare. Is worth seriously

 

I answered this on another forum.

The silver went into the strategic stockpile and was declared to be surplus in the early 80's. The GSA ran auctions trying to sell it off with poor results. They finally hit on a way to dispose of it. One oz silver bullion coins. The ASE's were to be struck from the strategic stockpile until it was exhausted. This occurred around 2002. Since then the ASE's have been struck from new domestic production. this consumes almost all of the domestic production so all other silver used in the US has to be imported.

So to answer your question all the silver recovered by the Fed was later sold back to the American public in the form of American silver eagles (and some in commemorative coinage, and in the silver proof sets beginning in 1992)