The price of silver has turned quite a bit of my collection into bullion. I can't say how much percentage wise, but it is significant and growing. For sure, most of the raw silver coins I have are melt or on that border. Since I had a lapse in buying from the mint, all of my silver mint products are now bullion. At this point, you would have to be camping on some really gem raw coins with numismatic value for them not to be bullion. Coins in plastic are going to take a beating if the price of silver stays high. Already, retail pricing for common MS-60 Morgans is at melt prices. MS61-63 are not far behind. Will we start to see bigger price swings from grades 65-70 due to grade/preservation rarity? I think there will be a few coin series that see this fate. Especially, low grade mint state 20th century silver coinage. A lot of low-grade mint state coins hold back the high-grade coin pricing. We have all bought a coin that looks one-grade better than the grade on the label. The entry fee to graded/authenticated coins is going to get a lot higher. In one hand I do get a bump in the amount my raw silver coins are worth. But, on the other hand, the thrill of having found nice raw coins in the wild seems pointless now. I may have found a few gems over the years raw. But, do I really want to send them to get graded if there is a chance they are graded bullion? All the countless hours of 2x2 cataloging my raw coins. Pointless, all bullion. Just throw them all in a bag. Some of my graded coins were overpriced bullion when I bought them. I bought them always hoping silver went up. Those type coins are also common inexpensive pathways into the numismatic hobby. It's the other silver coins that are the bread and butter, the backbone of the hobby. Does this cause a huge increase in pricing of super gem coins? Will this sideline some collectors out of the TPG coins? What about coin dealers whose stock turns to bullion? I think a continuance of high silver changes the collecting market. What if this is 1933 all over again? You are only going to be able to keep your MS-65 or higher TPG coins. We need your silver for uh, the uh, good of mankind. Do they even make those steel coffee cans anymore? I mean burying all my coins in those little plastic pods will take forever. Long Live the Morgan Dollar.
You are not wrong - Silver at $80 an ounce is going to seriously affect the lower ends of the market. Any common date is now "junk silver" - even Barbers and Morgans are trading at basically spot. This going to draw out a lot of hidden coins that will probably get melted. However, numismatic coins will still be worth a premium. Rare dates will always be rare. High grades will always be desirable. I'll say that for the majority of my collection, the base value of the metal is irrelevant. As for the countless hours cataloguing your coins and putting them in 2x2s... you didn't do that for the money. You did that because you enjoyed it. The fun you had remains, even if the value of your coins is now... a whole lot higher than it was.
I'll second the notion that it was not a waste to pick out, catalogue, and enjoy the nice inexpensive coins. Even when silver was in the $20s-$30s, something like a choice Unc Silver Roosevelt Dime was worth around melt. But picking out the better ones from piles of junk silver to make your own set was rewarding and it remains so.
Also, I would not worry about any silver or gold coins being turned in like 1933. Even then, "collector" coins were excluded. And it would be a logistical challenge to organize something of this caliber where it would be worth the effort. There are plenty of refineries that already are taking in bullion via a normal market method (willing sellers) and many have had issues keeping up with the amount being sold to them (hence some stopped buying earlier this year and then restarted with lower buy prices based on too much supply).
Are we coin collectors or bullion speculators and profiteers? People collect coins for the designs, dates, mints, varieties. I have never sold a coin and I've never cared what the price of the metal is. Silver has spiked and then dropped many times over the years. The people who melt lower grade coins now to cash in are going to be sorry when the melt price drops again, there are fewer of those affordable dates to acquire, and the collector value spikes accordingly. Assuming that the coin collecting hobby even survives, of course.
Yes, the enjoyment of collecting is still present. For me, the process of finding coins from circulation, then studying, assigning a ballpark grade and then conserving it in a flip or capsule is still valid as is the thrill of finding one that has withstood the ravages of time, human fingers and corrosive agents. What is disheartening is the volume of finds worth conserving has diminished steadily every year. I’ve only saved 3 coins from circulation in the past month, and, can you believe it?…one of them was a copper penny, one was a 1992-D Rosie in MS60 condition and the most recent was a MS65 Azucar quarter from the women’s series. But whether you collect from circulation or save your lunch money for several weeks to buy that special one you’ve got your eye on…the joy of collecting is still alive and kicking…Spark
I started with coins and transitioned to bullion. Now 90% of the coin collection is considered bullion but 90% of the bullion is vintage.
Yes, but what about all of those "marginal" or bullion caliber coins being melted which in turn will make the remaining coins that much rarer. Of course, it'll be nearly impossible to ascertain the number of remaining coins, but give it a couple of years and we'll see how that impacts the collectible market. For my two cents (will that still be ok to say after 2026?) I'll hang on to what I have. I'll stick to investing in some swampland in Florida, or a bridge some guy wants me to buy in Brooklyn.
My collection is mostly all numismatic. The gold price has caught up with many of my larger gold pieces, but since I collected gold dollars and quarter eagles, not a high percentage of them. Ditto for the silver. The closest I come to melt in quantity is a BU set of Franklin Half Dollars, all raw in an album.
I have one coin in a plastic holder, 1916-D dime. I tried for 50 years or more to find one to complete my set. I don't think coin collecting will be fun if you try to buy the coin, the bullion and the plastic. As for the question of this thread "how rare is your collection?" I say mine is Very Rare because the coins are not in plastic, they are raw. That is very rare today. And I have all the twentieth century dollars, halves, dimes and nickels. Missing a few quarters and cents.
Everyone knows that buying the Brooklyn Bridge is an old scam. However, I have been granted a license to build some pedestrian toll booths on the Brooklyn Bridge. Are you interested? It's a great opportunity and won't last long.
My collection is mostly numismatic also. No way I’ll cash out those as they have personal significance to me in my passion for numismatics. Be aware than selling non-pure silver for cash right now may not be a good financial strategy. Most refineries are overbooked for months with too much junk silver supply, thus the cash out will be a significant percentage below melt. Also, you are naive if don’t think there will be a silver price dip based on historical values.
This is easy. Get rid of your junk and buy coins with a small premium. By doing this we can preserve the best as we must discard the least. Yes, it has a low cost to do this but there are many tricks you can use to soften the blow. When silver is low buy discounted silver and sell gold then when its high trade for gold and premium coins. You'll end up with a collection that is really nice at junk silver prices. Go with the flow. Do what works and what you can. Godspeed.
I was alive during a time when silver was $11/oz but was lucky to make $5/hr. part time. In 1999 I started making "real" money part time while i went to school. $7/hr. But I digress... point being, you could buy all the silver you wanted at $11/oz in the early 90s and now it just increased in value, up $11.88/oz in the past week. This is unprecedented and risky. It can drop faster than the increase. I think the proper move is to do nothing for a while until this market gets it's bearings and we figure out what the new top and bottom is going to be. It very well may keep going. That being said, as for OPs original concern, I really wouldn't care if all of my collection became melt value. It'll never happen but it would be easier to keep track of the value. Junk silver is junk silver. Collector coins are more special. There's enough premium stuff that will never be melted that I don't worry about it. Two separate things that have their place. At the low end there will always be overlap. There is a very broad range beyond that level that will remain unphased by bullion value.
