Hunting for Rare Coins at Scrap Silver Dealer

Okay...so I recently went to this tiny silver scrap selling shop in my town to ask if they get many coins in. The dealer precedes to pull out at least 75 dollars (melt) in war nickels, 600 dollars worth (melt) of dimes (mercury, barber, roosevelt), 1000 dollars melt worth of quarters, 3000 melt worth of halves, and 15,000 (melt) worth of peace and morgan dollars. Most of these coins were brought in by local folks trying to sell silver for cash, and the guy said I was one of the first to sit down with him and want to look through the coins - which he said he was more than happy to let me do. The only thing he said they do is look at morgans turned for the Carson City mint mark and recommend the sellers go to a coin shop to redeem more worth than the melt value.

Long story short, it seems as though this place might be a numismatic gold (well...silver) mine! If I were going to sit down and sort through all of these coins, are there some years I should be on the lookout for? I'm relative new to coin collecting, but I'm addicted none-the-less. Realistically, I'm sure virtually all of the morgans have been sorted through...apparently the owner of the shop has an affinity for them. The dimes, quarters, and halves seem completely un-checked, though. Do you wonderful folks have any recommendations for years I should be keeping an eye out for with any of these coins? I highly doubt I'd find a highly rare coin, but I'm almost positive there are at least a few, relatively numismatically valuable coins in there. If I knew a couple years that tended to be more valuable for each coin type, I might be able to pick up some neat things. Thoughts? Thanks for your time!

 

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Get yourself a Red Book.

 

I'll certainly look into that. Do you recommend a red book over the blue one? Thanks!

 

There's lots to look for. But if you're trying to search a massive amount of coins I'd look for key dates and commons in high grades.


Keys
Dimes- Merucry1916-D
1942/1(bring a loope)
1921
1921-D
1926-S
1931-S


Quarters Washington
Mostly all D and S Mints from the 30s


Halfs Walkers
All the teens
1921
1921-S
1921-D
1938-D




That's off the top of my head, get a red book. It'll answer a lot of questions. Also know what coins you'll be looking at and know how to grade within a range. You won't learn it overnight but if you look at enough coins you'll pick it up I'm sure. But dates, mint marks and condition.




You're very lucky, I wish I had the chance like that. If you come across any barbers or standing liberty quarters, those will sell well in better grades. I've never seen barbers or slqs in he junk bins around here. Good Luck!

 

I go to my local cash for gold and buy bu Morgans for melt

 

good place t hunt bro

 

That sounds really exciting! You can check this website for values http://numismedia.com/fmv/fmv.shtml. Just make a crib sheet based on either the redbook or that website and bring it with you when you search through the silver.

 

If your source is allowing you to search through their coins & keep what you like, make certain that you provide them with some profitable business so that everyone enjoys your company & you do not become bothersome. Have fun. :smile

You could possibly stack the coins in order of date & mm. You could then see/learn which coins are plentiful & which ones are not. Why not try to complete some Whitman books by date & mm while you are at it. Again, have fun. :smile

 

Morgans-all CCs, 1893 S,1892 S, 1894 S, 1894, all mintmark varieties of 1895,1890 CC,1891 CC,1892 CC,1893 CC,1885 CC, 1903 O, all Unc. coins, 1878 7 over 8 tail feathers, 1889 CC. There are more, but I'm just too lazy to crack out the books.:devil: I just got some teeth pulled, so I'm typing this with a bunch of cotton in my mouth.

 

+1

 

Just a side note for Nate4S-
If you buy bullion silver dollars be on the look-out for fakes. One good field detection method is to hold a stack of the dollars & inspect the reeding. Sometimes if there is a fake in the stack, it will stand-out.

 

I would venture to say that if you find one of these "open invitations", I suggest you consider it...HARD :yes:

 

Buy all the Morgans you can for melt. Resell them in order to purchase more Morgans. You will make a killing.

 

Why not buy ALL of the Morgans?

 

This is a cool idea, sounds like it could be profitable for both you and the cash for gold place. Just an idea, to keep this arrangement going, maybe if you find a $100 coin for example, give him 40 or 45 , then he gets about double melt and you get an awesome deal. Maybe I'll take a trip down to my local Cash 4 Gold place.

 

I've actually gone to Cash4Gold places. They usually wont sell because they don't have a license to sell. So unless you are buying in bulk and secretly, they probably wont sell to you.

 

This is extremely helpful.

Thanks for all of the help everyone else. It is extremely fun...but also frightening because I have no idea what I'm actually looking for in terms of dates or rarity and have the potential to miss some really great coins (that someone else will buy to melt, potentially). It's crazy, the guy running the place said not many folks buy the actual currency, but prefer the silver eagles.

To address some of the other concerns. If I had around $20,000 just sitting around (which, unfortunately, I do not...I make that much in a year as a graduate student), I would buy ALL of the coins in an instant and take my sweet time checking each and every one out.

I totally understand about making sure to "reward" them for being so generous and letting me pick through their coins. The first time I went in there, I bought $180 worth of "silver"...F-XF walking liberty halves (1927, 1940s), Poor - Good Barber Halves (189x - 1912), some nice looking franklin halves of various years (none of the seemingly rarer years though), and one of the only Peace Dollars (1935) I could find that was not heavily cleaned...it's not cleaned at all! I would suppose there are some rarer years of Morgans and Peace dollars, but they would all have to be sold as cleaned/cull coins. I also picked up 3 of what seem to be Eisenhower proofs (for around $10 ea).

I think my next goal will be to save up some more coin-buyin' money (around $150 or so) and just look at quarters next. I saw some standing liberty quarters in there, but got so overwhelmed with the sheer number of things I wanted, but could not afford. I wish I could just arrange a field trip and have you all come along with me.

 

You don't happen to live in Michigan do you? :devil:

 

You can't get that lucky in MI.


OP Congrats hope you find some goodies!