Spot price silver

Another key to the magnet test is how quickly the coin slides across the magnet(s). If you have a known good sample of a silver bullion coin and a silver coin of the same type to be tested, a genuine coin will not only not stick to the magnet, and be slowed by the magnet, but they will both slide down at the same speed. If you put the good coin on the slide and then slide the subject coin after it, it should not catch up to the coin in front of it, or fall behind.

The only counterfeit coins you'll find that can pass this test are high dollar value conditional rarities, since they're likely made from the same silver alloy, possibly from a coin of the same type but a different date and/or mint mark. If that's the case, you wouldn't be sliding those down a magnetic slide because you wouldn't want hairline scratches, or they'd be in a slab.

 

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But that test doesn't proof 100% it is silver, it was discussed while back in another forum and one posters who is metallurgist stressed the magnetic slide is not very effective when there is thick silver plating.

 

True, but it has to be very thick. If you're talking coins, then it would have to be one of the 5 oz pucks or a kilo coin. If you're talking bars, maybe a 10 oz bar would be large enough to have a lead alloy core with a thick silver plating and still pass the test. It's also a little harder to test larger bars because as shown in the video, you slide the magnet across the bar, not the bar across the magnet. This makes it harder to accurately compare two bars.

Interesting enough, copper has the same effect with magnets. But if you were to slide a 1 oz copper coin and a 1 oz silver coin down a magnet slide, they would slide a slightly different speeds.

If I'm buying 1 oz silver coins for melt value and they pass the following tests:

1. Weight
2. Dimensions
3. Magnet Slide
4. Visual
5. Ring Test (I rarely do this one, but if they're already circulated, what the heck)

...then I'm 99.999% confident they're geniune.

 

Last time I saw prices posted for them at a coin show, buy prices for war nickels were something like 60-65% of spot. (90% silver was getting around 95% of melt, as I recall.) I bought a couple of rolls a few years ago with the same idea in mind, then I realized that it doesn't matter what "melt value" is if you can't actually get that when you sell them.

 

That is true... but it puts a floor on price. Worst case scenario, send it to a refiner for 90% of spot. Too bad copper doesn't work the same way...

 

As I understand it, the discount on war nickels is because the refiners themselves won't pay as much for it. It's more expensive to refine that alloy than coin silver.

Similarly, sterling (92.5% silver) gets less than 90% silver/10% copper, even though its silver content is higher. That remaining 7.5% can include a number of different elements, some of which are more difficult to separate.

 

I guess that "junk silver" is going for over 16% over spot lately. Hard to get the physical stuff nowadays.