Pre 1964 junk silver: how much is existing today?

Cool. Kind of fitting, since ASE are the new junk silver.

 

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sorry reposted

 

Some resellers simply resell the 90% junk silver by weight. My Brother-in-Law has four (4) 26 lbs pails of "junk" (common date) Mercury dimes in VF-XF condition. He bought those about 20 years ago and still has them.

 

Conder, thank you.
I've seen your reply and looks like you are my major source of information so far.

I'll copy paste question I posted on another forum:
Do you know/have a legal document authorizing usage of strategic stockpiles?
What about document where it allows subsidy for silver miners in order to use the silver in ASEs production?

BTW, what is GSA?

 

General Services Administration. They handle misc assets of the US. THey are the ones who sold the CC morgans in the 70's.

 

thank you

 

Well, the question of what happened to all those silver after 1964 still remains.
Why?
Let's see.
As one coin collecto told me, in 1964 in circulation was about 10 billion oz of silver in coins. It is about 310 000 tonnes. This information almost matches the mintage numbers.

As the same collector told me - and I have found the same information in other places 85% to 90% of that silver is gone forever now. It means that silver should have found its way into consumption/production data provided by US agency.


So the question is where's all this silver?
In US households as some people told me?
In 1965-1970 there were 40 mln households in US ... can you come up with the number of average silver holding of household? Right, it is not 5-6 oz per household, it's much more (I think if these people are correct we are talking about 150-200 oz of silver per household).

Then this information doesn't match information that that pre 1965 silver has gone forever.Why?
Because total silver production and consumption doesn't reflect such a big amount of silver anywhere. US agency that tracks silver supply and demand doesn't have this silver in such big quantities.

So I'm at the same place where I've started my search ... either junk silver stored in every household in US and the number of it is very big (and people are really shy to sell it to KITCO or other places that have bags out of stock), or someone like gov.agency holds it in vaults, or someone knows something I haven't researched as of yet, or I'm totally wrong in my counting ... so please, show me my mistake.


If you could clarify what exactly happened to these hundreds of tonnes of silver it would be great because simple explanation (work of Gresham's Law) doesn't connect the dots - too much silver for households to hold for such a long period of time.


So, may be we could do the math together and find missing pieces because I'm not able to complete the puzzle myself.

 

I would say almost all is gone from average US households. Most was melted down, either by the US or by refiners. However, this still leaves a lot in collector and silver stacker hands. As to how much, no easy way of knowing. No one has ever conducted a census, so I seriously do not know how a firm answer would be obtained. My guess? Maybe 5-10% of the original amount might be left unmelted, and they are in the hands of coin collectors and dealers, not any government agency.

 

That's the first problem there. It assumes that all the silver coined still exists as coin. Actually over the years coins would wear out and be redeemed and remelted, excess coin in the Treasury would sometime be melted and recoined, coin would be exported and melted, and coin was also melted for use domestically. So even in 1964 that 10 billion was probably closer to 2 billion. (Look at survival rates of 19th century coinage. Most estimates range around 3% to a max of around 10% for any given date/mint. Earlier years are even less. The only era with greater survival seems to be those from the 1940's and later. (An exception is the silver dollar which survived because it was held in the vaults as backing for silver certificates. And that amounts to about 400 million oz.)

 

My dealer claims that junk 90% gets melted every year, and 2011 was a good one for melting. Incidentally, he happens to believe the Franklin half has suffered greatly at the hands of the refiner. An overlooked series cut short by an assassination.

Believe it or not, I was told just last year by a teller at my credit union that they still set aside any coin silver they find and send it to the fed. On the other hand, one of the local banks sold me a couple silver Roosevelt's at face because it was in her till and it "was meant nothing to her."

 

Here's the data from mintage numbers
dimes, quartes, hafls minted from 1916 through 1964
Dollars since 1901 through 1964 (correct to Pitman Act 1918)


So we come to 2 bil oz. (not 10 bil oz as one collector told me)
That's a number used to mint the coins ... Now it's not a big number, but still it should find it's to way to the statistics if it is not hold by public, isn't it?

As of 80-s, all those melting should find its way to statistics of 80s(US silver supply/demand stats) ... can anyone show how much was melted when silver ran up?

 

There is still a lot of 'junk' silver out there. Several firms are still selling 250, 500 and 1000 face value bags of it (based on the weight, not the face value). Likewise I acquire some fairly regularly at flea markets and the like. Usually US coins so badly worn both the rim and the date have vanished. I have seen some worn so smooth that holding it up to a light with a magnifying glass is needed to tell what kind of quarter or dime it was. Like many 'survivalists' (once called investment speculators) I put mine into a box or jar or a .50 ammo can, for that rainy day when they will be the most acceptable currency (along with certain other tangible assets), if that doesn't happen, well my grand kids will be happy. This is separate from how collectible coins are handled. I think there are probably maybe ten or twenty million other Americans of similar mind, so the amount of stashed 'junk' silver in private hands is probably fairly large.