I am curious to know how does the melting of junk coins affect the coin market? With silver prices getting the attention of my fellow collectors and hearing their stories of how much money they are making selling coins for spot prices I can't help wonder how many other collectors are doing the same thing. Does melting down "junk" coins help the collector market? What do the long time collectors say about this? Or are there just too many "junk coins" in the world to matter.
There are a huge number of "junk" silver coins in the world. The present melt isn't having much of an impact in my opinion because it is easier and less expensive for industrial users to simply buy .999 silver from the Comex. If silver rises and stays in, say, the mid $20's or higher for a fairly long period of time, or if Comex supplies run short, some coins that are considered junk today may acquire higher numismatic values once it is realized that they are becomming scarce through increased melting. It is impossible to predict which coins they will be until after it happens. So to answer your question, it matters, but not yet.
Alot of collectors are dumping their common silver and using the money to purchase higher priced coins they normally can't afford. The common silver coins can easily be replaced. I see a large run to coin shops here locally, people getting rid of accumulated coins. How does it affect the collectors? Well I was heavily involved in the 80's melt down. I remember seeing hundreds of Morgans at a time coming in. Getting sent off to the smelters, NONE of them sorted. I wonder how many of them could of been better date coins. Even the number of 21's that were melted is unbelievable. The mintages of any of the silver coins is nowhere near accuate as to the true number of coins available. Have the coins shown any adjustments since the 80's meltdown? Not really. Are some tougher to locate? I think so.. How many 21 Morgan do you think were melten in the 80's?
If I were in charge, I would make it a FELONY to melt down any United States coins and especially silver coins. It is disgusting that human garbage would destroy history for future generations to make a profit. I remember about two years ago I was at my old coin meet and a guy there had a tray full of half dollars dating as far back to 1917. These coins were such "junk" there were even some mint bu 1964 halves as well. He told me that what doesnt sell tonight will be going to a refinery! May that guy throw himself off a cliff and burn for all eternity. He belongs in prison in my honest opinion as do those who do the "refining".
I used to work for Engelhard-Clal and we would get 50 gallon barrels full of silver coins and rings, it was amazing, i would go through to see if I could use any in my books, but they were never in good condition.....but lots of fun to look around in....
I take it from everyones comments that getting rid of (melting down) coins that are less then good, besides maybe the hard, hard to purchase 1916 d's, are good for the world of coin collectors or even more so really have no effect on collectors of higher grade coins. On the other hand destroying rare coins just because they are in the same bucket as the "junk" coins is bad, bad, bad. How in the world are we (todays and tomorrows collectors) supposed to know how many of the early coins still really exsists?
No one really knows how many Silver coins have been melted and are still presently being melted for just the Silver. It will bring more for jewlry, trinkets, etc than for coins to some. It will become more and more difficult over the years to find any Silver coins and the value of silver coins will stay as is until someone can actually figure out how many have beeen lost. When you think about the ones lost, melted, thrown away, made into jewlry, etc., no one really knows how many have been lost. If and when this is ever realized, coins like the 31D Mercury Dime's price will jump fanatically due to the already low mintage. Imagine, with that coin alone having only a little over one million made, if thought to have lost a half million and if there were ten million collectors that want one, what would the price be?
