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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;cladking, post: 1343905, member: 68&quot;]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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; Sure, dealers wouldn&#039;t ship off valuable antiques and coins just for the silver content but they couldn&#039;t afford to hold massive amounts of silver at $50 per ounce.&nbsp; Many shops were shipping off $100,000 in silver per day and they just couldn&#039;t hold much of anything back.&nbsp; There were few buyers because almost all the buyers worked for the Hunt brothers and they preferred 999 bars. </p><p><br /></p><p>But the 1980 melt just didn&#039;t last very long.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp;&nbsp; The bigger melt was carried out by the US mint between the summer of 1968 and early fall of 1969.&nbsp; They pulled all the silver out of circulation and reduced it to 90% bars and shaved scrap.&nbsp; This silver has since been sold by the government.&nbsp; It likely got over 15% of US coins.&nbsp; </p><p>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.&nbsp; This was mostly stuff like XF 1964 quarters.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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