Seeking Advice re Buying Junk Silver

[ml/nj]

I would like to buy several ($1000) bags of junk silver coins. I'm concerned about how to securely make the exchange of my paper money for these coins. Does anyone have any experience and/or advice.

ML/NJ

[appeal2]

The average bag of 90 percent junk silver contains 715 ounces of pure silver (after accounting for wear). $1000 face value dimes and quarters are currently trading around $11980, which means you are paying $16.75 per ounce of silver. Silver is currently selling on the spot market for $13.74, which means you are paying a $3 per ounce premium or about %22 which is quite high. My belief is you buy silver at the cheapest premium you can. You can buy 1 ounce rounds from an outfit called First Majestic Silver, direct from the producer, online, at $1 per ounce premium, one of the lowest premiums around. They limit your purchase to 200-300 ounces per purchase, but they are honest and ship pretty quickly, depending on demand. They are publicly traded on the Frankfurt exchange TSX: FR and operate out of Canada. I have ordered from them a lot and they have fulfilled orders flawlessly. A first rate operation.

[barb-tex]

The advantage to dimes is when silver gets to 500/oz trying to spend dollars is like walking around with 100 dollar bills and trying to make change. The same with gold, try to find 1 gram pieces same reason.
barbra ann

[Abigail Adams]

I don’t think old nickels are made of silver. Just old dimes, quarters, half-dollars, and dollars.

[Oatka]

Junk silver has the advantage that it is recognized by everyone and is easily used as cash when fiat money becomes worthless or is decreasing toward that state rapidly.

Good point, that many who get silver bars or granules forget.

I found the site below of interest in that if we do go into hyperinflation, even our "junk" coins issued today will disappear as their intrinsic value passes face value, just like what happened to the 90% silver coins.
and
library user: He said they’re not worth anything beyond face value, but then proceeded to ask if I’d take 5 cents each for them. LOL. I figure they have to be worth a little more than current nickels, due to silver content during that time.
Exccept for the WWII years, there's no silver in them. However, hang on to them. As per the following link, those nickles already have 2 1/2c intrinsic value. Might come in hand soon for REALLY small purchases. Most other current coins, including the current "gold" dollars have only 3c intrinsic value.
CHECK IT OUT

[5by5]

I got a 1964 half last year at the grocery store. The cashier asked me if I minded getting a 50 cent piece in change and I said “Not when it’s silver!”

First one in 20 years; I don’t know how it got back into circulation...

[Eric in the Ozarks]

When we lived overseas in the 50s-60s, my dad always had a $.50 in his pocket.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

good advice.

[Jack Black]

You can search on the web to find the price that 'junk silver' coins go for.

You can go to a local coin store to buy a bag once you know the price. You will pay spot + a bit for the amount of silver in the bag (which is determined by formula, bags are often sold by face value. Because they are all made out of the same material (90% silver or 'coin silver') and the original weights were in proportion it doesn't matter much if you get dimes, quarters, halves or dollars, though some dealers charge more for the rare halves. Most dealers sell bags of all one type, which might be best. I think mostly they are all sold by weight, the formulas having long ago been agreed to and coin dealers having better things to do then count out every dime in a $1000 bag of dimes.

I've used the prices from NW Territorial Mint for junk silver in my chart. They would be a good place to buy it from, as I have done business with them with total satisfaction. If you are in Portland and want to walk in Columbia Coin is a very good shop. Most cities have reputable coin dealers who have been around for years, ask around.

And then you'll have a bunch of old worn out silver coins that without close inspection look a lot like the government issued non-silver self-counterfits in circulation.

So, let me be the second person to suggest either American Eagles or generic "rounds". You can buy Eagles at a fair price from either Kitco or Apmex on line stores. I have bought from both with no problems.

You can by generic rounds from Northwest Territorial Mint. These are the best deal: the mark up between the spot price of silver and the price for their coins (er, 'rounds') is only about $1.10 an oz. (APMEX has other brands of generic rounds as well.)

The American Eagle has the same amount of silver but a much higer premium per oz.

(But it is quasi legal tender. Personally seeing as FedGov/FedBank have destroyed the value of the dollar I don't see any reason to get their signature of my 1 oz silver coins. I greatly prefer that they come from some honest hardworking miners and private mints than the clowns with the government "permit".

OK! Time for pictures, links and numbers!

Spot Prices per Oz. as of post time
Gold	$942.00
Silver	$13.67

Bullion Prices by Dealer	All coins are Silver
Vendor	Product	Price Per Oz.	$ over spot
APMEX	American Eagle	$ 17.71	$4.04
Kitco	Canadian Maple Leaf	$17.93	$4.26
NW Territorial Mint	NWT Round	$15.07	$1.40*
NW Territorial Mint	"1/10th Bag", $100 face value	$15.20**	$1.53

* NWT Requires minimum purchase of 50 oz and payment by check.

** 90% US silver is usually sold in $1000 face value bags. I've used the $100 face value bag for my calculations. It weighs 72oz. 72 * .9 = 64.8 oz of pure silver (to aproximate the comparison with all the other cois which are .999 silver, or just shy of 100%) The price for the 1/10th bag is $985 divided by 64.8 oz = $15.20 an oz.

They are all a little harder to do business with than Amazon, but they need to be.

NWT doesn't sell bullion for credit cards, at least not at the discount rates. They do ship via FedEx and insure at their costs. Lead times are long (10 to 12 weeks) but accurately quoted. They usually deliver a few weeks earlier than they say.

APMEX (American Precious Metals Exchange) takes credit cards but charges a bit for it. You also pay your own shipping.

KITCO also only takes checks, but it's not obvious, you use a card to order, then get a login, and mail a check. Sorry I don't remember if they comp shipping. Probably not.

OK, the fun part! Pictures. These are all the same size and color in real life, sorry the photos are all slightly different.

Silver American Eagle

Silver Maple Leaf

Obverse and Reverse of the NWT Silver Round.

They also mint rounds with Pan American Mine logo on them. These are cool! Who wants dead presidents, when you can have live miners. Very Randian!

Bag of 90% silver pre-1964 US coins.

Oh yeah, one more thing to remember: gold and silver (and platinum) are measured in Troy Oz, which is not the same as the oz. you are used to. It is heavier, and there are 12 troy oz's to a troy pound (a measure rarely seen) All PM dealers use Troy Oz's or grams. Keep this in mind.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Probably from a coin collection. Someone didn’t know the value.

[zek157]

All silver coins are struck in 1964 or earlier with 90% purity. Each bag contains either all dimes, quarters, or half dollars. No mixed bags. For all dollar bags, call for price and availability. Full bags with $1000 face may be shipped as 2 sealed half bags.

Don’t buy dimes.

[zek157]

NW Territorial has had problems in the past.

Attorney General settles case with NW Territorial Mint

Sep 24 2008

The Washington Attorney General’s Office announced a settlement last Thursday with an Auburn business that sold precious metals online but allegedly failed to deliver the items by the promised date.

“Silence may be golden but not when consumers are waiting to hear when their precious metals will be delivered,” Attorney General Rob McKenna said. “Today’s settlement requires that Northwest Territorial Mint honor its promises to deliver on time or offer a fair refund.”

Under the terms of the settlement filed Sept. 18 in King County Superior Court, Northwest Territorial Mint will pay $20,000 in civil penalties and nearly $38,000 in state attorneys’ fees and costs.

Northwest Territorial Mint sells gold and silver bullion, coins, medallions, knives, lapel pins and other items online at www.nwtmint.com and at a storefront in Auburn. The company also mints some of its own products.

[mamelukesabre]

If they sell it by the pound, why not? a pound of dimes is no different than a pound of quarters.

[zek157]

Junk silver is sold in bags with a face value of $1000. If you are buying thin dimes you are buying fewer ozs per $1000 face value bag. It’s only 90% silver to begin with, so I wouldn’t consider any junk silver a value except the coins are readily recognized.

Personally, I would only consider Maple Leafs.

[Jack Black]

Why Maple Leafs? Why are they better than American Eagles? I can understand why you might prefer them to private mints I suppose.

[RobRoy]

I just came across this old post and had to bump it. I just bought a bunch of Morgans at an auction (selling everything from furniture to knicknacks) and “only” paid $25 each for all I could get my hands on.

Silver punched through $30 an oz yesterday and I just had a feeling this was its “breaking through the ceiling and no looking back” moment. We’ll see.

[ml/nj]

Also, we are still in a deflationary period.

I was just going through some old posts and happened to see this. I wondered if you might wish to issue a retraction.

ML/NJ