Hello: I found a local coin dealer offering silver eagles and it states that they are .993% pure. I can only find a couple of references to that number on the internet. Can someone tell if the US mint did actually did mint some Silver Eagles at .993 instead of .999? Thanks.
Since 1986, the U.S. Mint has produced the popular one ounce American Silver Eagle coin of 99% silver (.993 silver and .0007 copper), There are none made of.999 but they can still get away with saying 99%.
"The American Silver Eagle is the official silver bullion coin of the United States. It was first released by the United States Mint on November 24, 1986. It is struck only in the one-troy ounce size, which has a nominal face value of one dollar and is guaranteed to contain one troy ounce of 99.9% pure silver." It does not say how much other stuff is in there. There's "one troy ounce of 99.9% pure silver".
This still doesn't make sense. Galapak says " There are none made of.999 but they can still get away with saying 99%." I would have not problem with someone saying 99% for a coin with .993- they would be getting away with nothing because if it is in fact .993, then they are just rounding down to .990. But the US mint specifically says on their website that it is made of 99.9% silver, so why would any other vendor say it is only 99.3%? (such as this site: http://www.coin-rare.com/2018-silver-eagle-ms70-anacs-first-release-limited-edition-2500.aspx) Or, if it really is .993, why would the US mint claim it is .999?
Just a theory based on the ASSUMPTION that the .993 is correct, which I will NOT vouch for: There is enough silver there that IF you refined it down to .999 fineness, you would have 1 troy ounce of it. The coin itself might be overweight.
The actual purity of an ASE is .9993, NOT .993. The Mint rounds DOWN and guarantees 99.9 %. If dealers are stating .993, they are simply getting it wrong.
Thank you Mikem2000!!! That solves the mystery. When I do an internet search for .9993 I now see lots of entries - so that explains why there is so few .993 notations. Thanks for clarifying! Matt