Hello everyone. I bought one of those framed "The Silver Story" collectibles at a yard sale. It consists of a 1921 Morgan dollar, 1922 Peace Dollar, 1957 $1 silver certificate, and some silver granules. Should I leave the item intact (and maybe keep its overall value higher), or just go ahead and bust the dollars out (which I'm dying to do )?
I like the way the feedback is going! Sodude, I think you're right about value. From what I can tell, they're not exceptional in any way.
Not glue! Yuck. I'll have to psych myself up to deal with that. Both obverses have nice toning, but the reverses are still unknown.
Of course if you break up the holder the value of the granules will plummet. In the holder with the others coins they may still be accepted as .7734 oz of pure silver. Break it up and it is .7734 troy oz of an unknown metal.
Two silver dollars= $42.00 .774 toz of pure silver= $21.06 1 1957 Silver Certificate= $1. (yes, they are that worthless). So it's worth about $65. One non-framed (booklet style) sold for $71.22 with free shipping here recently. Once you take out fees, that's about $61. You're actually loosing money with it on eBay. So I would say break them out, or hang it on your wall if you would like.
If you like the way they are presented, keep them framed. They aren't going to be worth more or less either way.
Thanks everyone for your thoughtful and useful input. It's why I like this site! For now, I think I'll just keep them as they are. Until the next question pops up, I'll just be reading & learning. Thanks again.
Post a picture of it if you can. If it were me...I'd probably leave it as is because coins in those sets tended to be polished and like someone else said are often glued in place. Actually they're not. They do hold a little value above face. Not a lot, but some.
I'm absolutely clueless about taking photographs, much less having them be of the calibre of most of the ones I see posted here. Way beyond my skill level! Maybe one day......
That's OK. I would have just liked to see it. The way I look at items like these is this. The silver dollars are the most common years...1921 Morgan and 1922 Peace. Unless they are very nice MS coins they are only worth melt (and I have never seen a set like this with high grade MS coins). So polished or not...they are worth melt. The same can be said about the silver granules. The silver certificate is probably worth a couple dollars. Point being, removing them from the frame will do nothing for the value of these items because the only inherent value is the melt value. That value is always there no matter what. I would say the item has MORE value as is because it is a nice display piece. That probably isn't worth much...but I would say that gives the item a little bump.
But only if still part of the set. Can you imagine the reaction of your average silver buyer if you walk in and dump a handful of anonymous little bits of metal on the counter and say "these are siler, what will you give me for them?" Even if he does accept that they are silver they are just unmarked bullion of unknown fineness and he is going to have that same problem when he tries to move them on t the smelter.
