War Nickels - clean or not to clean and price over spot ?

Have a roll of war nickels and some are black and dirty and in what would sell for spot price. Seeing they are only worth the silver content I'm thinking about trying to make them more eye appealing. Is there a good way to do this?

Also, out of curiosity when buying at local dealers, do war nickels have a premium over spot or can you get them at under spot? I know it depends on the dealer just curious what people are paying today.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Your war nickels may look unappealing, but there is really no 'good way' to clean them. If they are just a vehicle for silver accumulation, it doesn't much matter what they look like, anyway.
I've never heard of a war dime, but I don't know any B&M dealer who sells US90% under spot.

 

I got 9 of them in pretty good condition for a buck a piece. That was only 12 cents over spot, so that's the going price nowadays I guess.

 

Was supposed to be war nickel* I edited and fixed it. And reasoning behind that question was I noticed on eBay war nickels go for almost spot or less. And eBay almost always cost more than a B&m dealer in my experience.

 

Cleaned or not, if they are circulated, they are really only worth about spot. If you were referring to buying war nickels at below spot, it's possible, the reduced price that they pay is reflective of the cost of refining the lower purity. They may pass this along to you.

 

I always look for them in my change, which is the main way how I accumulate them.

 

It's a great way to get them!

 

Now that I understand your question, yes, they can be had for under spot through various venues.
Bags of both circulated 40% halves and 35% nickels have a CDN bid below melt.

 

IMO, I hate the look of cleaned coins, mostly circulated. If it were me and there was a roll of cleaned war nickels and a roll of uncleaned war nickels, both for the same price, I would take the uncleaned roll without a second though even though they are just junk silver. Those are just my thoughts.

Coinman,

 

I would not suggest "dipping" very dark toned War Nickels because you are likely to find Dark Spots remaining, which are concentrations of copper that did not alloy properly with the silver and manganese. Why not just photograph all 40 laid out--sell it as a roll on eBay with a starting price of $37.16 (01/09/15 close)--and let the Collector/Buyers wrestle with the decision of cleaning vs. selling for scrap.

 

No photos of the nickels? Too bad.

I haven't had the urge to clean these...

 

That's a nice original set. I don't see any objectionable toning. They're obviously circulated, and if you did dip them the results would be very noticable and unsatisfactory.

 

That's not in my coin vocabulary.

 

Definitely do not attempt to clean these with any sort of "dip". However, some acetone will not harm them, and some dish detergent with a soft brush (tooth brush), dry, then rub each gently with some olive oil, pat dry and you should be good to go. I think dipping should only be done when absolutely needed, with bright, uncirculated silver coins. Otherwise you will ruin the value. It is wise to first test some worthless fellows first if uncertain. I have dipped a few 2014 pennies, and the color was slightly altered, dipped for LESS than 2 seconds. After a week or two, the resulting color was not bad. But these pennies were near MS 69 or better. Do note that opinions vary. This is my opinion.

 

I try to stay away from War Nickels since when you go to sell you may not like the offers you get. A local coin shop in my area publishes their buy prices and they are offering $0.40 per War Nickel. Not sure what they sell them for but that is a pretty large discount to spot and seems to indicate that there isn't much of a market for them.

 

True, but if you accumulate them from circulation (aka coin roll hunting), then that's a great price - 800% profit.

Buying them is, in my experience, a bad idea because I've only seen them advertised at spot+, which is bollocks.

 

I like them because they are historic, and they are bound to have some numismatic premium one of these days.