James asks…
Any good places to find or buy junk silver coins?
I’m looking for junk silver in quarters, dimes, and copper pennies. Here’s some places I have already and let me know if you have other suggestions, thanks.
Grocery store change
Banks
Laundry mat business
Coin collectors
website mint companies
Justin answers:
Well, what are you looking to pay, face value or the going rate?
For face value, you can try going through your change or sorting through bank rolls. This isn’t going to yield much. With high prices back in the news again like 1980-91, the average person is paying a lot more attention to their change. Sorting of bank rolls has picked up.
Unless you own the laundromat. Good luck finding an ignorant owner who doesn’t know about silver coins.
As for collectors, they expect to get near ‘melt’. Websites charge a premium above ‘melt’.
So, what are you willing to pay? I’d be happy to unload my stash of ‘junk’ silver for $23 an ounce.
Ken asks…
Is it ok to polish old ‘junk silver’ coins or does doing that somehow take away some of its value?
Cleaning to me is no big deal cause I am thinking that them being 90% silver the value comes from the ‘silver content’ as opposed to having ‘historical’ value from the natural old circulated look. So do I clean or not clean? I tend to like thing looking shiny and new. Thanks.
Justin answers:
Well, they’re your coins. If you want to polish them, you can, but it will kill any numismatic value they might have (even “junk” silver coins can have some numismatic value in some cases).
You should know that even if they look “shiny”, they won’t look “new”. They’ll still have the wear they had before you polished them. And unless you’re able to store them so that they don’t come in contact with any sort of contaminant, they’ll just start toning again–and the toning on a worn coin that’s been polished usually looks worse than one that hasn’t been polished.
Joseph asks…
Morgan silver dollars, 1881, set of 20, in excellent condition, what are they worth?
I have been given a set of these coins. I know nothing about old coins. I would like to know what they are worth and where I can sell them to get the most out of them. Any infor would be appreciated.
Justin answers:
I can tell you that the first and foremost factor in value is rarity, followed immediately by condition.
Factors that affect rarity are how many were minted, what mintmark it is, any minting oddities, and again, its condition. (ie: there are fewer in perfect condition than in abused condition, making the better ones more valuable due to numbers alone)
Factors that affect condition are: dings, dents, scratches, gouges, weathering, cleaning, damage by environment, fingerprints, and toning. Try not to handle them other than by the edges, and dont slide them across any countertops or tables. Handle them gently, every nick costs the seller money.
Cleaning is THE single worst thing a person can do to a coin. Dont do it. Leave it exactly like it is. Let an expert determine what it needs, if anything.
History has been hard on coins, keep in mind that this coin is 125+ yrs old and was carried across the western front in trunks, pockets of cowboys, settlers, hidden in log cabins for years, traded, thrown in the cash register with other coins, buried for years, and slammed on counters of stores and bars for decades.
I wont bore you with the professional grading scale, but it starts with junk value at the bottom, and escalates to mint purely perfect “as minted” condition at the top, or MS70 (mint state 70)
A roll of 20 of them in junk condition will sell for 20x the value of silver, per oz.
A roll of 20 of them in mint, undamaged, perfect condition, will sell for much more.
George asks…
how is silver refined? what is the process and time involved?
looking for oldfashioned method. not a newer auto machine that does it.
Justin answers:
Silver is currently about 1/60th the price of gold by weight, and approximately 70 times more valuable than copper. Silver did once trade at 1/6th to 1/7th the price of gold, prior to the Age of Discovery and the finding of large silver deposits in the Americas. Over the last 100 years the price of silver and the gold/silver ratio has fluctuated greatly due to competing industrial and store of value demands. In 1980 the silver price rose to an all-time high of $49.45 per troy ounce. In December 2001 the silver price was $4.15 per ounce, and in April 2006 it had risen to $12.00 per ounce.
For over four thousand years silver has been regarded as a form of money and store of value. However, since the end of the silver standard, silver has lost its role as a common form of currency.
A traditional way of investing in silver is by buying bullion bars. In some countries, like Switzerland and Liechtenstein, bullion bars can be bought or sold over the counter of the major banks. Most investors would not recommend storing large quantities of bullion oneself (e.g. In one’s home or buried in the garden) but to use a bank or dealer. Other than storing silver in one’s own safe deposit box at a bank, silver can be placed in allocated (also known as non-fungible), or unallocated (fungible or pooled) storage with a bank or dealer.
Buying bullion silver coins or “rounds” is another popular method of physically holding silver. Some hard money enthusiatists use 99.9% “fine” silver rounds (see Liberty Dollar) or even 99.99% pure silver coins (see Canadian Silver Maple Leaf, for example) as currency. Coins may be minted as either fine silver or junk silver, the latter being older coins with a smaller percentage of silver than 99.9% pure silver e.g. U.S. Pre-1965 dimes and quarters are 90% silver. Junk silver coins are also available as sterling silver coins, which were officially minted until 1919 in the United Kingdom and 1945 in Australia. These coins are 92.5% silver, and are in the form of (in decreasing weight) Crowns, Half-crowns, Florins, Shillings, Sixpences, and threepence. The tiny threepence weighs 1.41 grams, and the Crowns are 28.27 grams (1.54 grams heavier than a US $1).
A certificate of ownership can be held by silver investors instead of storing the actual silver bullion. Silver certificates allow investors to buy and sell the security without the hassles associated with the transfer of actual physical silver. The Perth Mint Certificate Program (PMCP) is the only government guaranteed silver certificate program in the world.
Futures based on silver currently trade on various exchanges around the world. In the US this occurs primarily on COMEX (Commodity Exchange) which is a subsidiary of the New York Mercantile Exchange.
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