LOTS of Mercs.....

While there might not have been specific rules, I'm not sure of that. I think the intentional destruction of currency amounts to destruction of Government property.

Ruben

 

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I am sure that they are Date/Mintmark searching for some of the tougher coins! If you continue to melt down common Date coins they should eventually go up in price as the availability of this specific Date/Mintmarked coin has significantly gone down. However, since there is no record of what is getting melted down by private companies such as Silver Towne, there is no way to gauge the availability of this specific Date/Mintmarked coin and no way to adjust the values accordingly! Heck, if you melt down 231,000,000 of the 1944-P Mercury Dimes, then it in reality becomes more rare than any other Mercury Dime minted with the exception of the 1916-D.


Frank

 

Ahhhh.....I miss 30 cent silver dimes. That wasn't too long ago.

 

Sorry to disagree, but, during the coin shortage of the sixties, it was illegal to melt silver coins. In fact there were two guys arrested trying to smuggle coins into Canada to sell them for melt.
I don't remember when the ban was lifted, but it was there.

 

Not sure of the original source but I found these:

“Under the new policy, exports of Treasury silver are banned and domestic sales are limited to legitimate consumers. Also, the melting, treating and export of silver coins are prohibited.”

also:
it was illegal from 1967-1969

They seem to be correct and agree with my memory.

 

that makes me mad just to think of all the silver coins that were melted! someone could have those in their collection. i collect silver coins, not blobs of silver!:loud:

 

Coinlover,

The Roosevelt (Dimes), 1960-1964 Washington Quarters and 1964 Kennedy Halfs are the coins most often melted down and at the rate that companies like Silver Towne are melting them down, some Dates and Mintmarks will become almost non-existent in the future. If you hold onto a few rolls of each of these, you might have some really rare coins one of these days as Collectors will be not be able to obtain any for their' Collections/Sets.


Frank

 

I'm getting 'sticker shock' when I look at the prices of many coins today. I don't know if it's my imagination or what, but coin prices right now seem extremely high.

 

Nope it isn't your imagination, the prices are very high, and seem to be getting higher.
And a lot of the prices are taking the fun out of collecting.

 

why do they only melt the 1964 halves and 1960-1964 quarters and dimes?

 

Because many of these have the highest mintage numbers of the Series (denominations) of the 90% Silver coinage, are considered very common Dated/Mintmarked coins and therefore, they are considered more expendable than the others!


Frank