Was this a fair price?

Yesterday (11/3) I sold several hundred silver quarters to a local dealer for $3.95 per coin. I know that the price of silver went down a bit from the day before. Was that a fair price or did the guy rip me off?

Thanks!

 

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Ripped off.
I was paying $4.58 per quarter yesterday
spot indicated a value of $4.64
that dealer made $.75 per quarter to his pocket

 

fair price

 

I know somebody who only pays 2.50

 

I say fair, if you sold them on ebay you would have paid at least 10% in fees.

 

Thanks for the reply's! Is there a usual percentage that honest coin dealers would pay for those...say 95% of the value? I have more to sell and would like to talk to other area dealers to compare prices.

 

not that I know off. Just shop around and take the best offer(provided its's reasonable)

 

$3.95 is a very reasonable price. Silver only now reached $25.69 which indicates approximately $4.68 in silver content for your quarters. Had you taken your quarters to the buyer today, you possibly would have gotten $4.25 a piece. Yesterday, silver started to took a dive to $24 a little after 10:30AM EDT and did not begin to rebound until after the London market halted. So the silver content based on that low (and an uncertainty if any gains would remain), each quarter had approximately $4.34 in silver (which $3.95 is about 90% spot).

There are only a few smelters from whom you would be able to net 95% spot from. Some dealers will only offer what they can send it in to the smelter for. Sometimes this can be as low as 80% spot for junk. Others will sell inside the market, sometimes at a very slight premium. At such point, you may be able to sell for as high as 95% or even spot, depending on the dealer's needs, but generally, those are levels that trade inside the market.

In my own opinion, an "honest" dealer will offer anywhere from 75% to 95% on spot depending on their interpretation of the market. Yesterday, with the sudden drop and slow rise following, an "honest" ask would be 80-85% because of the market's uncertainty. If the sale was conducted during the period in which the price was still dropping, as low as 75% would have been an "honest" price.

Remember, PM prices are very volatile, and history has already shown us that prices can and do crash unexpectedly. Silver dropped 4% in a half hour period yesterday. It did recovery, and is now on its way to $26. Yet, what if the opposite happened and instead of a $1.50 increase from the low drop, it continued to steadily drop $1.50 instead? Silver would be at $22.50 now. That would put the silver content value at $4.05! So, the dealer would lose 11 cents per piece sending it into a smelter today!

That's the chance the buyer of PMs takes. And remember, junk is not bullion. It may be sold "as bullion" (I do it quite often), but it is not bullion. And as such, it carries little to no premium with actual investors of bullion product.

Talking to dealers and "shopping around" is a very important thing to do. because each dealer has different interests, specialties, and networks that they are involved with, you may actually be able to find a dealer that will hit spot value, especially when the market is favorable and you have bulk ($1000+ FV).

 

I think you did alright things change so fast now a day,s it,s hard to know for sure which way is up...LOL

 

One of the most informative posts I've read on these forums in a long time. Thanks for your insight NPCoin!

 

I agree. You were paid a fair price.