What do I do with Franklin Mint "stuff?"...

Back in the day, my Dad got hooked on buying sterling silver proofs from Franklin Mint - the picture below is "History of the United States," but he purchased several series. I now have books and albums of this things. They are gorgeous, but as far as value to the coin collector - probably "not much." So, if I want to liquidate them, do I just take them to the guy in the strip mall with the sign that says "I buy gold/silver" and just dump them for melt value OR is there some better way to extract some higher value?

Thanks!

 

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You could get a bit more on Ebay but I'm not sure it's worth the time to go that way.

 

Here is some info that may help. It might be that todays silver value is greater than the original purchase price. https://franklin-mint-silver.com/franklin-mint-history-of-the-united-states-medals.htm
And yes take them to a dealer for melt when the value is high.

 

Thanks for that link @alurid ….. Actually appears to be an attractive set….. Yeah, sadly I don’t see much numismatic value and that’s too bad. They really are quite nice…. And yes if you want to liquidate them at melt value now would seem to be the time to do it. Even though there was a late week dip, spot prices are still pretty high right now.

 

They are beautiful proofs and it would be a shame to sell them for melt. Check to see if there are any on eBay and what they are selling for. You can find most things on eBay, it's by far the biggest marketplace for selling coin related items.

 

If you have a Craigslist in your area, you could put an ad that lists the melt value and ask for a bit more... If you do that, make sure to meet at a bank or a police station for the exchange. Otherwise, call the coin shops in your area.

 

I did look on ebay, sell there. I typed in on ebay: franklin mint us history silver coins.

 

Hi - thank you all for the robust, insightful comments. Looks like a have a couple of options, and yes, it would be a shame to just send them to the "fiery furnace."

 

If you have the volume to hit their minimums you will do far better selling to a refiner vs. the we buy gold (and rip you off) places.

 

Unfortunately, most of Franklin Mint stuff is not worth much more than its scrap value. If you have bronze pieces, you are really out of luck. The TV program "60 Minutes" did a special on the Franklin Mint material, many years ago, which really blew them out of the water. Collectors had stuff they had paid thousands of dollars for. They were astonished to learn that it was worth pennies on the dollar.

Here is a piece that I bought for $2 at a coin show. It broke up a complete set, but they sold it to me anyway. The reason for my purchase is obvious.



Some Franklin Mint stuff was supposed to be good. Many years ago, a friend of mine, who was a big Franklin Mint collector, had a piece that contained silver that had been flown on one of the spacecraft that circled the moon. It was supposed to be worth $200. (Real money on those days.)

There was a big New York City coin dealer who had a big display of Franklin Mint material on its second floor. I tried to sell it for my friend. I went to the place and asked if they were interested. They called out their "Franklin Mint expert." Out comes a dispirited looking little guy. He looked at, and said, "I know how you got that. It was given to regular Franklin Mint customers." He declined to make an offer on it. Later I sold it to a guy who worked in the office where I worked for $12. He had a son who was really into the space program.

 

The problem with most "space flown" metal is it gets diluted to almost homeopathic levels.

1 oz of flown silver in 5,000 oz of non-flown.

 

Given the astronomical cost of sending anything into space, that’s the way it has to be.

 

And yet upwards of 440 Robbins medallions were flown on each Apollo mission. By my math that's about 10 pounds worth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_space-flown_Gemini_and_Apollo_medallions

 

From I understood, the silver that went into these Franklin Mint pieces, which were smaller than a dime, was "snuck on" the space capsule. I think that this was before the moon landing. There was only a small amount of silver which was combined with a lot more silver to make the Franklin Mint pieces.

Maybe you got "a couple of atoms of silver" that went around the moon in these pieces.

 

ditto look into flea bay, plenty frankie stuff there and some sells (coins)
no melt, not a fan of destroying the past.

 

That's nothing! I've got some* silver items that are almost entirely made of metal that was ejected from colliding neutron stars!

* actually, all of them. Yours too.

 

Prove, with pictures of the collision.

 

I suppose the Franklin Mint could have just bought one of the 3000+ medallions and used that silver instead.

That's nothing! I've been in space for billions of years and what I'm made out of was made inside stars!* Just ask Carl Sagan. And I'm still in space! Currently moving at about 1.3 million mph.

* OK, you too.

 

I loved Sagan. He was better than Star Trek…… Billions and billions and billions and billions…….

 

I just drank some water that had dinosaur pee in it...