Urban Silver Mining Question

[Romalae]

Though primarily a copper sorter, I have also infrequently dabbled in silver sorting. This venture has spurred me to ask the following question for this community: In what denomination of US coinage does the silver turnout tend to come to fruition the most? Nickels (War Nickels), Dimes, or Quarters? I am aware that half dollars yield a plethora of silver in relation to the other denominations (mostly due to the general public's ignorance about the 40%ers), but from my imperfect experience, I cannot determine which other denomination tends to have a stronger turnout of pecuniary goodies.

[Rodebaugh]

Half>Dime>Nickel>Quarter

[dakota1955]

ditto to the above

[creshka46]

Actually, by dollar value yield, I would almost say that nickels offer a better payoff than dimes. usually they each average 1/box. 1 silver nickel ~ $1.75/$100= 1.75% yield, 1 silver dime ~ $2.40/$250 = 0.96% yield. However, I will say that dimes are a heckuva lot easier to search than nickels since you can just edge search.

[Romalae]

Actually, by dollar value yield, I would almost say that nickels offer a better payoff than dimes. usually they each average 1/box. 1 silver nickel ~ $1.75/$100= 1.75% yield, 1 silver dime ~ $2.40/$250 = 0.96% yield. However, I will say that dimes are a heckuva lot easier to search than nickels since you can just edge search.

This is, however, based on box-sorting. I also occasionally sort bags, and not only do the number of coins in the unit change, but so does ease of sorting -- you can't really edge-sort with bags. So then one could argue that dimes are actually significantly more difficult because of their small size and tendency to blend in with one another in large quantities, as opposed to war nickels which tend to be a darker tone than their peers.

[creshka46]

That's a good point, not to mention the horror stories I've heard on here that every once in a while a machine will go a little crazy and count a few hundred dimes as pennies. Personally, I don't do dimes any more for that very reason. Plus, I like hunting for the pre-60 nickels, it helps keep things interesting between silver finds

By the way, welcome to the board!

[deacon]

Actually, by dollar value yield, I would almost say that nickels offer a better payoff than dimes. usually they each average 1/box. 1 silver nickel ~ $1.75/$100= 1.75% yield, 1 silver dime ~ $2.40/$250 = 0.96% yield. However, I will say that dimes are a heckuva lot easier to search than nickels since you can just edge search.

I'm averaging 1.5 dimes per box. Hardly worth it. Maybe one day I will run into a widow getting rid of grandpas horde.

[Romalae]

That's a good point, not to mention the horror stories I've heard on here that every once in a while a machine will go a little crazy and count a few hundred dimes as pennies. Personally, I don't do dimes any more for that very reason. Plus, I like hunting for the pre-60 nickels, it helps keep things interesting between silver finds

By the way, welcome to the board!

Thank you for the welcome!

Yes, that scenario must be absolutely tragic. Pennies are the best coins to dump for this reason because if the machine does make any identification error, it will always go in your favor. Dimes, as mentioned, do seem hardly worth the trouble of sorting them and accounting for them at dumps, regardless of silver turnout. This thread has solidified that notion for me.

And that's interesting about the pre-60 nickel mention. I've done the same, although I've extended it to pre-63 myself. What kind of numismatic value do these have at all? Sometimes I have difficulty justifying setting them aside.

[creshka46]

You're welcome. As for the pre-60 values, I will refer you to this thread. Hope that helps!

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=19155