hi, couple of years back i met a jeweller who claimed to have melted more than 100000+ silver coins for making jewellary over 3 decades. what should one do to people like them? touch their feet for making coins more scarce or kick them?
other uses of coins! :hammer:well during the coronation of Gerge V in India 1911, again huge numbers were melted to make thrown for the King. Also know as the Delhi durbar where all the kings of princely states came to attend the coronation . :hail: In a temple in pushkar i saw lots of old silver coin embedded into the floor and the walls. In early days it was a practise to offer 11/21/51/101 rupees to the god and all these were cemented into walls and floor....
it is what it is, precious metal coins often end their lives that way, look at what is happening recently with piles of modern silver and gold headed into the smelting pot
It's very sad to see some stolen valuable coins sold to these "instant cash" houses by quite less than melting!
Unfortunately we call that business bommi. I work in a coin shop and we do jewelry as well. When gold hit $1000 for one day we gutted our cases of a great deal of rings and chains. The gold melt was worth more than the jewelry. Unless it's an extraordinary stone we look for the metal. We buy jewelry every day for nothing more than the metal. It is taken to Chicago and refined in 100 ounce batches. We also have several "melt" buckets in our vault. Silver coins go in these buckets by denomination and purity. There are buckets for 90% silver half dollars, quarters and dimes as well as a bucket for 40% halfs and war nickels. This stuff usually ends up with another dealer who may need it but I'll guarantee some of it gets melted along the way. Have I found anything good in these buckets. Yes, found a 1916-D Mercury Dime and 32-S and D Washington quarters. ALL of those are key dates and glad I found them. I just wonder how many HAVEN'T been found due to lack of time. We also have a bucket for sterling and odder grade silver. I throw perfectly nice proof coins from other countries in there as well as old world coinage with little collector value. Like I said unfortunate but true and business.
Maybe those Roosevelt dimes will be worth something someday . Clembo do they take the better grade coins out , or do all commons go . rzage
Sad, but... Yes, it is sad in a way, but why do you think coins were made out of precious metals in the first place? Money has no real value unless it has intrinsic usage.
