i am wanting to know what the least amount of money i should take for a few coins that are silver. half dollars dimes nickels thanks! (all pre 64')
Half Dollars: .36169x41.48=$15.00 Quarters: .18084x41.48=$7.50 Dimes: .07234x41.48=$3.00 War Nickles: .05626x41.48=$2.33 $41.48 is where silver closed on Friday.
I found this site. Not sure how accurate it is. Just go to the pulldown menu and select your coin, then you type in how many of them you have and it will give you its silver value. The site also shows the spot price of silver every day. Edit: I just used the formula in the previous post to check the price calculator on this site and the calculator is accurate. http://www.silverrecyclers.com/Calculators/coin_calculator.aspx
Please note...all these calculators that have been linked are giving you the "spot" price...that is, what the silver is "worth" at the current market price. There's also a "bid" and "ask" price, that will represent the theoretical spread between you selling (the bid...what "dealers" will bid for your silver) and you buying (the sell...what "dealers" will sell to you for). Top top it all off, all any of those numbers are is a "paper" price...the price on paper. What you can reasonably expect to SELL (and buy, for that matter) them for will vary, sometimes by quite a bit, from that price. It can depend on a great many factors, including, but not limited to: 1) Quantity - How much do you have? Anything under $10 face value is considered an extremely small amount, and many dealers won't even mess around with less than $100 face value. On the other hand, smaller local dealers may be happy to handle even $1 for you, but their bid/sell spread will be a good bit larger on such small amounts. 2) Buyer - Selling to a coin shop? Bullion dealer? "WE BUY SILVER AND GOLD!!" place? Individual? Collector? What matters is what their intent is. Those who are going to the trouble and expense of actually packaging and shipping the coins for melting will pay the least...those who are buying to speculate short term a bit more, and those who ar ebuying to hold long term will pay the most, typically. 3) Local market - Are there multiple coin ships, all looking to speculate on some silver, or fill a melt bag? If so, the price they'll pay may go up due to the competition. Is there a healthy "silver stacker" community around? If it's an individual, is he driving a long ways or short distance? 4) Local availability - Sometimes local shops or dealers will run out of silver...thus, you can sell a bit higher if you have some. Other times, even though the price is "high", you'll get a low price, because nobody's buying at that higher price, and the dealers are stuck with a pile. ============ ALL of these things, and then some, will dictate the answer to your "least amount I should take" question. As a general rule of thumb, it's reasonable to start at 90%-95% of melt value...but don't be offended by offers at 70%-80% of melt value. Anything below 70% is probably someone just looking to get away with a cheap bid. On the other side, if you're, don't be shocked if you're asked to pay 95-100% of spot at a dealer or online. With some work and willingness to hustle a bit, you can usually find individuals who'll sell at 80-90%. Having said all of that, my personal favorite calculator is: http://www.silvercoinstoday.com/silver-calculators/us-silver-coin-calculator/ It lets you specify any number of any type of silver coins, all at once, and then gives you a melt value, a weight of silver, AND a handy bid/sell spread calculator at the bottom, which you can adjust. So...if you're looking to sell, and expect 85% of spot or better, just fill in what you have, put in a 15% spread at the bottom, and see what the price would be. You can also adjust the price of silver in the box at top, if you want to see what it'd have to be to get $x...and, at the top of the page, there's a live kitco banner with the current spot bid.
gboulton, I have a question. If a coin dealer buys your silver, where do THEY sell it, and why can't I just sell it to the same place? Stock market? Government?
Yes you can sell to the same place dealers do. APMEX is just one of many. All you need is to get at least $100 in face value of 90%. The higher amount of silver you have the more you will get paid. Set up a account with them so they know were to send the check and other information about you to the IRS for taxes. Than package up your silver and ship the silver to them after you confirm your shipment with them. You need to send it Registered mail with Insurance. This runs around $40 to $50 dollars with the insurance. After they get your package you will be sent a check out in 3 or 4 days.
Lots of different places...kinda depends on most of the same things as above...the current silver market, the local community, that sort of thing. Some may sell to smelters or other refineries, who are actually melting the coins and extracting the silver. You could certainly sell to them, but many will have minimum amounts well above what most of us might have on hand. Certainly wouldn't hurt to look though. A simple google search for "silver smelters" produces http://midwestrefineries.com/ as the very first link, and they advertise 90% of silver value, no minimum. I have NO idea who they are, so no clue if they're reliable, or how you ship to them, or whatever...DYODD of course. Other dealers simply speculate short term, and try to buy low and sell high. All they're looking to do is make a few bucks off of buying and selling from the public. No reason you can't do the same on e-bay, craigslist, or whatever. Of course, remember that you'll pay various seller fees, shipping, gasoline to drive, whatever, and you'll have to avoid the eager beavers who like to report/flag/delete posts or auctions they don't like. There's even some dealers who simply use their shop as a means to buy silver at well below melt, and hoard it for their own personal use. Obviously, you could do that as well, if you so chose. I'm sure there's other paths junk silver takes, and some of the dealers here might be able to provide more specifics. Having said all that...I've usually found it's simplest and quickest to simply call a couple dealers, ask what they're paying for junk silver, and head to the one paying the most. Right now, unless you're talking about $100 face value or more, I'd look to get between 24 (about 80%) and 27 (about 90%) times face value right now. Much below that, and you can probably do better with just a bit of effort. Much above that, take it and run. Outside of that, if you have the time and feel like hustling a bit, ask around at a few gun/safe shops, outdoor survivalist type places, that sort of thing. You'll frequently find businesses/owners/customers who'll buy at a bit higher price than the local shop, but you should probably plan on haggling, being a man of your word, and keeping your mouth shut in general.
One other thing to keep in mind, forgot to mention above.... Flea Markets, Gun and Knife shows, Antique shows, Coin shows...those places ALWAYS have a thriving "side market" for PMs. Check out the local newspaper or a few websites, and if there's something like that coming up soon, might be worth visiting.
Don't forget local coin clubs. That's usually a place to get much closer to the melt value of most coins.
