what junk silver is" too good" to call junk ?

To me junk silver is Roosy dimes ( any) Wash quarters ( any) Franklin and 1964-69 Kennedy halves ( any). I wouldn't even look through bags of them looking for a 1932-s quarter. Of course I wouldn't trash an original BU roll of 1962 quarters for example, but I'm not going to look through a bag of circ. FDR dimes, either !

IMO, the main semi-junk silver coins are the WL halves and Merc dimes. They are over 60 years old. I consider even stuff from the early 1940's in Fine or better to be worth a bit more, but in retrospect the proper thing to do was to melt them back in 1980 ( I'm 47 yo, BTW).

Is there even a premium over junk silver on these yet ? I guess you could probably get 15-17X on ebay, instead of more like 14X for regular junk ?

I can't trash a no date SLQ or a poor/ AG Barber coin either....even if they don't weigh right.:hail:

I have no problem trashing FDR, GW BF, or JFK coins though !

I know they don't really ( usually) even get melted....or do they ?

Any thoughts on this ?

 

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To me junk silver is any coin that does not hold a numismatic value above melt. here is a list of things i keep

1. Any dime that has a 2011 Red book value of atleast $2.50
1. Any quarter that has a 2011 Red book value of atleast $5.00
1. Any half that has a 2011 Red book value of atleast $9.00
1. Any silver dollar unless it has been saverly dameged such as being holed

:Edit: forgot to add, i would not suggest blindly sending in Franklin's and Washington's

 

I keep anything that I can sell for greater than melt value.

 

And sorry to say friends, that ain't much in the circulated stuff. It's going to be interesting some day in the future when we realise what we've done to the lower steps on the staircase of this hobby.

 

"Too good" changes based upon silver price, always has. With the silver market today, all of those things you mentioned that you couldn't junk are in fact junk. I have the same problem, most of my "junk" silver is circulated Morgans, WL halves, dated SL quarters, VF Mercury dimes, etc. When I bought silver at $4 an ounce, I still cherrypicked better stuff, maybe paying $5 an ounce for it. Heck, the only 2 rolls of Roosevelt dimes I have is a picked out set of 46, and the other roll is half 49s and the rest earlier coins. I have other "junk" from purchases but most of the quantity is better stuff.
One thing to remember is that when silver goes back down, a lot of what you consider non-junk will be in these junk bags. I got a ton of G barbers and dated g/vg SL quarters digging through junk bags that were put together in the late 70's. If silver goes back down, remember that, and buy these bags to pick through.

 

True, but I hang on to the key date Rosies, the Mercs, a few of the Washingtons. Mostly get rid of the duplicate halves, although I am reluctant to give up any Morgans.

Since it's only a hobby, I can hang on to most of my silver and pick when I want to sell some to allow me to buy an item I really want.

 

Most of that stuff even though it is tied to the spot price of silver it does not get melted, it gets resold in that form and trades for a premium above spot.

 

Yep, which is why hopefully when silver goes down they will still be around to cherry pick through. Its one of my favorite tricks, but since I don't collect them anymore I talk about it a lot. I pulled out rolls of barbers and SL quarters in the past at melt this way, even a few worn seated liberty coins.

 

Anything that you might need to fill a hole in a collection or if it is ancient and in fair condition One mans junk (silver) is another mans treasure

 

excellent response !

 

When I sell junk Walkers, Mercuries, 64 Kennedys, Franklins, Washingtons, Roosevelts, SLQ, and Barbers to my dealer, he knows I already picked through them, so he throws them into a bucket full of silver coins. He says the price of silver being what it is now, it's all the same.

 

I must agree with the general (and tautological) advice that anything priced above melt is too good to melt.

For about a decade now, some aficiandos of the Washington Quarter have been pointing to the huge melts of these "common" coins. They believe (and want us to believe) that certainly in higher grades, anything with Mint Luster is worth keeping and moreover, some years seem harder to find than others; but it is not my thing, so I so have no idea what years those are.

Also, as the price of silver is a factor, know that most industrial silver comes from the processing of copper. We live in an industrial society and you cannot ring a bell with glass, i.e, fiber optics do not carry current. When I was in New Mexico 2002-2003, I was stopped at a railroad crossing where flatcars of nominally "pure" Kennecot ingots were headed to a refinery to be made 99+ pure: gold, silver, everything else makes it worthwhile. Primary mining of silver is secondary. The melting coins is known, but not a factor right now.

 

Have to love a reply with a 3 dollar word in it. i had to stop and think for a minute exactly what tautological was!

 

I agree with you. By melting, you may be shutting the door to collectors with average $ means in the future. Bottoming out the market as a whole.

 

First of all, if that's you in your profile, you are cute. I don't believe in calling anything worth more than face value "junk". I collect a TON of silver Rosie Dimes out of circulation. In fact, please check out my post that I'm about to make about the Merc I found the other day. - coincrazed

 

I love when people dump their "junk" silver! I usually get well over melt for what they didn't want. Not by selling individual coins, but for making sets of Roosevelt and Franklins. People tend to buy a set for nearly three to four times the value over spot if I were to sell them one at a time, maybe for the convenience of having the whole set in one shot. And thats for average circulated coins. So, keep tossing those unwanted junk coins out, please!
Guy

 

Back in 1989-91, I was buying as much "junk" silver as I could from a coin shop in northern Washington State. They wouldn't let me cherrypick, but heck, at 3.5X face I figured I couldn't go very wrong, so I bought as many rolls as I could. I ended up getting enough "junk" Mercuries to fill all but 6 spaces in my album (excluding the overdates), plus I completed a Franklin Half and Roosevelt silver dime album just with "junk silver" I got from those rolls. I also filled more than half the holes in my Walking Liberty and silver Washington Quarter albums from those rolls. Ah, the "good ol' days"

 

why not do as i do, give it away to young new collectors to help them become more interested in our hobby, i recently gave over 100 coins to a young boy of 8 who has started to collect coins, and now his dad is hooked as well.

 

I teach English part-time in Japan, and one thing that I do is give a small bag of foreign coins to each new student. I also have a world map in my classroom that has coins from various countries taped to their respective places on the map, and the kids like to look at the map and the coins.

 

I wonder if it would be a good idea to look through a bag marked 1000 Morgan face? Or similar? Just thinking..some have metal ties that I suppose one would cut off if they wanted to see what is inside..maybe someone already looked through them for whatever one looks for, then again, not?