Lots of below-melt silver showing up on eBay

I just wasted an hour or so following the new BIN listings in Coins & Paper Money on eBay. All the usual RARE MINT ERRORS fresh from the parking lot, lots of circulated clad stuff listed for hundreds of bucks, but there are also some folks listing silver at 45-50x face value, well below current melt. Those lots go fast, but not instantly; I spent a good ten minutes deliberating with myself over one before it sold.

I almost pulled the trigger on three Walkers for $50 + $5 shipping, 36.7x FV, which is well below my ad-hoc threshold of "2/3 melt" - but I'm just not sure I'm ready to jump back into actually buying on eBay.

Also saw a lot of 80 Walkers that was apparently a collection dump; it looked like it contained a 1916-P and 1916-something (likely D), and a 1921-P and 1921-something (likely S). Lots of dates, but he didn't call out the mint marks, and the photos aren't quite good enough to read them. He's asking $2800-something, well above melt. I did the thing of buying large lots to get key dates when I was building out my Barber set, and decided it was a good way to talk myself into not-so-good deals.

Same guy has a set of 35 Barbers that includes a 1905-P that was uncirculated, before someone scrubbed the obverse to death. Currently at $940, melt would be $980. Same story; I'm passing.

Next question: can I pull myself away in time to do any of the other stuff I intended to do this afternoon?

 

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Yes, I believe you can multi-task or just take a nap.

 

Oh, multi-tasking is another big lie. That's how you find yourself mis-calculating and paying 3/2 melt instead of 2/3 melt.

 

Welp, I've cracked the seal - I found a listing with a bunch of those framed "Coins of the [random historic period]" displays, calculated that the BIN price was about 60% of melt, and made an offer 10% below that. eBay has changed the way "Make an Offer" works, for the better, I think; I had to do a PayPal authorization before it would even put the offer through, and then it auto-billed when the offer was accepted.

I'll have some framing to donate or repurpose, some cardboard to toss, and some cents to put into the jar - but I'll also have 12 war nickels, 4 silver dimes, 3 silver quarters, 4 silver halves, a Morgan, two Peace dollars, and a buck or two of clad change for right around $230 shipped. I figure I'm good as long as silver stays above $45, and even if it does fall back below that soon, I'm confident it'll bounce back above that level in my lifetime.

 

That seller apparently accepted an offer for $2026, a bit below melt. Someone got a very good deal; I only hope they fish out the keys before hauling it all off to be melted.