The price of silver has turned quite a bit of my collection into bullion. I can't say how much percentage wise, but it is significant and growing. For sure, most of the raw silver coins I have are melt or on that border. Since I had a lapse in buying from the mint, all of my silver mint products are now bullion. At this point, you would have to be camping on some really gem raw coins with numismatic value for them not to be bullion. Coins in plastic are going to take a beating if the price of silver stays high. Already, retail pricing for common MS-60 Morgans is at melt prices. MS61-63 are not far behind. Will we start to see bigger price swings from grades 65-70 due to grade/preservation rarity? I think there will be a few coin series that see this fate. Especially, low grade mint state 20th century silver coinage. A lot of low-grade mint state coins hold back the high-grade coin pricing. We have all bought a coin that looks one-grade better than the grade on the label. The entry fee to graded/authenticated coins is going to get a lot higher. In one hand I do get a bump in the amount my raw silver coins are worth. But, on the other hand, the thrill of having found nice raw coins in the wild seems pointless now. I may have found a few gems over the years raw. But, do I really want to send them to get graded if there is a chance they are graded bullion? All the countless hours of 2x2 cataloging my raw coins. Pointless, all bullion. Just throw them all in a bag. Some of my graded coins were overpriced bullion when I bought them. I bought them always hoping silver went up. Those type coins are also common inexpensive pathways into the numismatic hobby. It's the other silver coins that are the bread and butter, the backbone of the hobby. Does this cause a huge increase in pricing of super gem coins? Will this sideline some collectors out of the TPG coins? What about coin dealers whose stock turns to bullion? I think a continuance of high silver changes the collecting market. What if this is 1933 all over again? You are only going to be able to keep your MS-65 or higher TPG coins. We need your silver for uh, the uh, good of mankind. Do they even make those steel coffee cans anymore? I mean burying all my coins in those little plastic pods will take forever. Long Live the Morgan Dollar.
You are not wrong - Silver at $80 an ounce is going to seriously affect the lower ends of the market. Any common date is now "junk silver" - even Barbers and Morgans are trading at basically spot. This going to draw out a lot of hidden coins that will probably get melted. However, numismatic coins will still be worth a premium. Rare dates will always be rare. High grades will always be desirable. I'll say that for the majority of my collection, the base value of the metal is irrelevant. As for the countless hours cataloguing your coins and putting them in 2x2s... you didn't do that for the money. You did that because you enjoyed it. The fun you had remains, even if the value of your coins is now... a whole lot higher than it was.
I'll second the notion that it was not a waste to pick out, catalogue, and enjoy the nice inexpensive coins. Even when silver was in the $20s-$30s, something like a choice Unc Silver Roosevelt Dime was worth around melt. But picking out the better ones from piles of junk silver to make your own set was rewarding and it remains so.
Also, I would not worry about any silver or gold coins being turned in like 1933. Even then, "collector" coins were excluded. And it would be a logistical challenge to organize something of this caliber where it would be worth the effort. There are plenty of refineries that already are taking in bullion via a normal market method (willing sellers) and many have had issues keeping up with the amount being sold to them (hence some stopped buying earlier this year and then restarted with lower buy prices based on too much supply).
