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Where do people get all of these coins from? Have they been searched for numismatic value rather than intrinsic?

Worth buying? Or buy silver rounds instead?

Yes, junk silver is worth getting. Be careful, it can easily become a scam.

It like a good mix of junk silver, rounds, and bars.

Junk silver is a “mixed bag”. I personally inspected the contents of the few bags I have considered buying. Most had what was expected. A few were obviously not as advertised. Yes, sellers were very upset I insisted on inspection. Sellers with bags that were short, had wrong coin, or any other problem were even more upset. I am a Neanderthal, and expect to get what I pay for. Time for more coffee.

Since most Ag US coins have appreciable wear, its best to buy them by weight, not per each price.

They may become useful as a trading money after fiat fails. Eventually, a dime will buy a sandwich.

thecrazyone wrote:Where do people get all of these coins from? Have they been searched for numismatic value rather than intrinsic?

Worth buying? Or buy silver rounds instead?

At current premiums?... I'd buy 10oz bars or 1oz rounds instead.

galenrog wrote:Junk silver is a “mixed bag”. I personally inspected the contents of the few bags I have considered buying. Most had what was expected. A few were obviously not as advertised. Yes, sellers were very upset I insisted on inspection. Sellers with bags that were short, had wrong coin, or any other problem were even more upset. I am a Neanderthal, and expect to get what I pay for. Time for more coffee.

Some dealers add underweight slicks to these junk bags, especially today when premiums are sky high.

Like Idaho said, better to buy by weight if possible.

IdahoCopper wrote:Since most Ag US coins have appreciable wear, its best to buy them by weight, not per each price.

They may become useful as a trading money after fiat fails. Eventually, a dime will buy a sandwich.

The best part about "junk silver" is the small size. A silver dime at 0.072 ounces (2.25 grams) ASW is equivalent to a cup of coffee, or as Idaho said, "a sandwich."

Wear will quickly eat into the value, and most are well worn.

I agree that buying based on weight, rather than face, is best due to wear. The worst example is the bag of halves I looked at years ago. Yes, the weight of the bag was right. When opened, they were indeed all halves. Many, however, were 40% silver, not the 90% advertised. Always inspect. Always.

Time for more coffee.

Kennedy halves are an exception to the buy by weight rule.

They weren't in circulation for very long before silver coin were being removed from circulation to be hoarded. They didn't have time to wear like the older silver coins.

IdahoCopper wrote:Kennedy halves are an exception to the buy by weight rule.

They weren't in circulation for very long before silver coin were being removed from circulation to be hoarded. They didn't have time to wear like the older silver coins.

Good point, but the premium on JFKs are significantly higher than dimes and quarters.

There are multiple ways of looking at this.

Agree that Kennedy’s don’t often wear as much as dimes and quarters. The problem with the 40%ers is that the silver is on the outside so those will often wear faster than 90%ers.

One thing in general I like about the halves is there are fewer to count (example: 10 old silver halves might include a good date Barber or Walker). Counting 1,000 halves is way better than counting 1,000 dimes, many which may be bent and have issues when going through a machine.

I’ll take the halves anyday, even at a modest premium. If the premium was something ridiculous like 50-100%, I’d sell and try to buy the halves at a lower price later- even if I had to be patient.

Other stuff like war nickels just isn’t worth it to me.

I do remember seeing someone who had a pretty large quantity of silver that was hidden in a wall and melted in a fire. He got a lowball offer. To me, the coins still could have been melted- so they still could have been identified clearly by type- even though there were some black and very ugly coins in there.

Can’t remember the exact price (it was well over 10 years ago), but The melt price for those coins shouldn’t have been so low IMHO.

Good topic.

I would buy whatever I could afford (and maybe even push that idea a little more ahead).

Not only do you have some bargaining power with the recent dip in the silver price, but you can also say you plan just to make them into rings, pendants and couldn't care less about their condition.

galenrog wrote:I agree that buying based on weight, rather than face, is best due to wear. The worst example is the bag of halves I looked at years ago. Yes, the weight of the bag was right. When opened, they were indeed all halves. Many, however, were 40% silver, not the 90% advertised. Always inspect. Always.

Time for more coffee.

What shady dirtbags.

90% is now $7.49 over spot on Apmex.

It went up again. 90% is now $8.00 over spot on Apmex.

Apmex premium on 90% is now $8.50!

Pretty sure that is the highest it's ever been.

Cu Penny Hoarder wrote:Apmex premium on 90% is now $8.50!

Pretty sure that is the highest it's ever been.

Do you know what that would be in 'times face value'? 20x, 22x, 25x, 30x? Thank you for this information!

Catfish4u wrote:

Cu Penny Hoarder wrote:Apmex premium on 90% is now $8.50!

Pretty sure that is the highest it's ever been.

Do you know what that would be in 'times face value'? 20x, 22x, 25x, 30x? Thank you for this information!

That is about 24x

Slaphot wrote:

Catfish4u wrote:

Cu Penny Hoarder wrote:Apmex premium on 90% is now $8.50!

Pretty sure that is the highest it's ever been.

Do you know what that would be in 'times face value'? 20x, 22x, 25x, 30x? Thank you for this information!

That is about 24x

Friendly tip - the website Coinflation has this handy calculator which allows you to manually input the price of silver to determine what "times face value" would be at any given spot price.

Corsair wrote:Friendly tip - the website Coinflation has this handy calculator which allows you to manually input the price of silver to determine what "times face value" would be at any given spot price.

This site is a bit better IMO...

http://coinapps.com/