How fast are the 90% silver coins getting melted away?

I orginally thought all of this coin just traded back and forth like bullion. I am realizing now that a lot of it gets sent in and melted down. are there any estimates on how much is out there and how fast it is disapearing. I imagine that will increase if POS goes up in the future.

Seems a shame these coins are getting melted but maybe that will be good for generating collector value as they get more rare. Anyone think Franklins, Kennedy's, Merc Dimes ect will have the potential to gain numi value above there melt value within the next hundred years or so? I'm talking about normal circulated condition coins not the slabbed coins.

 

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Eventually I believe so. Given enough time, enough of them lost, melted, etc coupled with if the numbers of colelctors increase I could see all silver coins having collector value. The first will be halves and mercuries in my opinion, but eventually all will.

 

If not increase numismatically, they will increase in conjunction with the price of the PM it's made from. I see silver and gold worth substantially more money as they all either become used up in industrial usage or in gold's case more people investing and sucking up all the physical metal. Also, keep in mind the total population of the world exponentially increasing in 100 years.

 

Yeah that is my prediction too. Unfortunately the higher the metal value the harder it will be for numi value to surpass it. I wonder how many of these coins will survive. I assume it is near impossible to even estimate what has already been melted away.

 

How fast are the 90% silver coins getting melted away?​

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It all depends. It's gonna take a whole lotta silver than I currently have in order to create my own solid silver 50 foot statue of, well, myself. I'll let you know when I'm done though.

 

Which is why coinage of Newfoundland (my sub-specialty) remain somewhat affordable despite extremely low mintages and survival rates: relatively low demand.
US coins with the same mintages/survival rates would cost many multiples of the Newfie coins.

 

Newfies.... Canada's rednecks.

 

I've been to Newfoundland several times and the people there treated me just fine.

 

Just like if the number of Newfie coins was the same survival rates as sogdian coins would cost multiples of current prices. There always a lower demand series out there.

Comparing anything to US coins is troublesome. I simply find US coins the most vastly overpriced coins on the planet. To be fair, this is a testament to the amount of US coin collectors, but also a criticism of them since most never stray outside their own borders and comfort zones. Come on guys, I promise you won't catch TB by owning a non-US coin!

 

Melting is not going to affect availability of silver coins for collectors in the foreseeable future. Even if 99% of the '64-D dimes were destroyed it would have no effect on the values. It is not within the realm of reason to expect such a high redemption rate except in the very long term because all '64-D dimes will not be sold for melt and even if they were a small percentage would be bought for storage or for collections.

This being said there are numerous exceptions to this general rule. For instance a tiny percentage of '64-D quartters have a clad reverse and these are mixed in with the typical specimens. So the small population of the clad reverse gets melted in the same proportions as the common coins. By the same token most '40-D quarters are heavily worn and have no numismatic premiums so large numbers of these will be melted leaving relatively few of any grade for this date. The same goes for numerous US coins and even more numerous world coins.

Common coins will always be common but some common coins weren't saved and some uncommon coins only appear to be common. You have to think about these things. Compare mintages and values and you'll see what's going on.

Melting was very high up till 5 months ago but might have slowed down or sped up with the lower price. Figure about 30% of the silver is gone across the board and they can get about 10% of the survivors each year if the refineries stay busy. This means it would take a very long time to get them all and this especially is true since prices will increase for coins when supply is sufficiently affected.

The bottomline is don't buy coins waiting for melting to make them rare. Trade off your '55 quarter rolls for something that already has a numismatic value around spot. Waiting for '69-D halfs to be worth more than melt will only work if the silver price crashes so you lose money either way.

 

I was just joking, I have a few newfie friends and they're crazy, haha.

 

Don't be bad mouthing rednecks.

 

I really like Barber dimes, quarters and halves. Full rims in Good 4.

 

Actually I am of the opinion - which could be far off the mark - that junk silver coinage isn't being melted in great quanities. It is just basically shifting hands from one person to another. As long as the coins remain in the hands of the general public there really isn't much benefit of melting them into bullion bars. In fact I am of the opinion that silver coinage at the retail level is more liquid and retains more of its silver value than other forms of silver.

 

I just don't know I guess. I know coins were melted in 79-80 but most were defective. Most good US coins, (meaning not bent, corroded, holed, etc), were bagged up and sold that way. From what I saw back then foriegn coins were melted more than US coins were, at least here in the US. Even if coins aren't melted, though, more are lost every year by fires, accidents, and just loss. If just for those losses, coupled with growth of collectors, and some day I believe halves and mercuries at least will start carrying numismatic premiums similar to dollars today. You have never been able to buy silver dollars at melt in the last 30+ years I have been around.

 

I prefer to keep silver in coin rather than bars. Coins are a lot more convenient, a known quality and almost universally recognised. Unless you are talking Englehard bars, everything else gets a scrutiny. Unless coins are worn out, damaged etc I see no real point in melting them. And if TSHTF ever happens, you have negotiable small denomination stuff to spend on food etc.

 

Anytime the supply of 90% coin is greater than the demand the price drops and the melters can make a profit by refining the coin into bar. There was huge melting in 1980 and it involved all sorts of coins and even BU rolls like 1955 quarters because almost no one was goinfg through the junk silver to pull out better material. Sure, dealers wouldn't ship off valuable antiques and coins just for the silver content but they couldn't afford to hold massive amounts of silver at $50 per ounce. Many shops were shipping off $100,000 in silver per day and they just couldn't hold much of anything back. There were few buyers because almost all the buyers worked for the Hunt brothers and they preferred 999 bars.

But the 1980 melt just didn't last very long. All the refineries were operating flat out and had huge backlogs but when the price collapsed so too did most of the backlog. In that brief time they likely got only 10% of the US coins. The bigger melt was carried out by the US mint between the summer of 1968 and early fall of 1969. They pulled all the silver out of circulation and reduced it to 90% bars and shaved scrap. This silver has since been sold by the government. It likely got over 15% of US coins.
Unlike the 1980 melt though this one got almost no numismatic coins and just the junk that was still circulating despite $1.50 silver prices. This was mostly stuff like XF 1964 quarters.

 

I agree. I have also been hearing a lot of bad news about china counterfieting bullion. I doubt they will be faking beat up half dollars though!

 

Me too.

But I'd suggest moving up just a little in grade. I'm old enough to remember original circ rolls of barbers and these were mostly AG to VG- with a a lot of Fair and a few F's. VF's and XF's were few and far between. I believe the F's are little more expensive and much less common. I'd trade off anything below solid Good for either silver or higher grades.