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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;GDJMSP, post: 2027020, member: 112&quot;]Silver coins are gathered and melted every single day, as are gold coins but to a lesser extent, and this has been going on for literally centuries. And it will continue to go on long after we are all dead. In years past, it was governments who did this, even with their own older coinage. It was the natural way of things, they would melt the old coins to get the silver to make new coins. Now if they didn&#039;t want to change the fineness of the silver in the new coins, sometimes they would just use the old coins as planchets for the new coins. But only those old coins whose wear was say F or better were used because those would have the correct weight. </p><p><br /></p><p>In this country we all know about the huge melts back in the early 20th century, and those of the &#039;60s when silver was no longer used. But there also one in 1987 when the price of silver shot up.</p><p><br /></p><p><img src="http://www.kitco.com/LFgif/ag85-89.gif" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /> </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>And more recently, there was a huge melt between 2006 and 2013, which peaked in 2011.</p><p><br /></p><p><img src="http://www.kitco.com/LFgif/ag00-pres.gif" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /> </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>But even when there are no price spikes, silver coins are still being gathered and melted every single day. There are many businesses who do this. SilverTowne for example does a huge business in the melting of silver coins - every day. Some folks just aren&#039;t aware of it. Collectors especially don&#039;t realize the extent to which silver coins are gathered and melted. But that is largely because of the way they think. To collectors silver coins are something to be saved, cherished, and put safely away purely for their own sake - because they are silver coins.</p><p><br /></p><p>But by far the majority of the world doesn&#039;t see it that way. To the majority of the world silver coins are nothing more than chunks of bullion and they have no special meaning. It&#039;s kind of like how the majority of world, even the vast majority of coin collectors, looks at modern bullion coins - they are nothing but chunks of bullion.</p><p><br /></p><p>As to the OP&#039;s question, are we as collectors apathetic ? I don&#039;t think so. But the reality is that what we think doesn&#039;t matter because we are so greatly outnumbered by the rest of the world. For every silver coin we put away they will melt a hundred, a thousand. And they will continue to do so. Especially when there are spikes in the price of silver.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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