How much should dealers be paying for 40% silver Kennedy halves?
mr1931S
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Last time I tried to sell some of these, the offers I got were absurd based on price of silver at the time. It was like they expected me to give them away. One prominent dealer at a show offered me $1 apiece for what I had in these even though the silver coin value chart I was referencing indicated a little north of $2 silver value for each coin.
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This may be low, but we buy them at 2.25-2.50 , and if that dos'nt work, I let em walk. I dont care, the refinery and wholesalers hate em, and I also have to have a min(like 300-500) before the places will even accept them, not worth thier trouble.
same thing with can 80%
That is why I do not bother with them other than for collecting. For stacking, I like ASE's... Melt plus a little...Cheers, RickO
When I get them I can easily sell off the bay at BV, sometimes slightly more if many bidders. Currently their BV is $3.55 each. So any these I pickup just blow them out on the Bay either several at a time or part of lot. I can prob get $4 each in auction days now but shipping and eBay selling expense can drag down below BV. Awhile back sold a lot of these off bay for $34 picked up Mexico silver 50c 1940’s NGC 65 for same amt low double digit pop (auc) sold at show keystone markup.
I don’t stock these or actively pursue them. Frankly I don’t want them. So just lowball offer the heck on them. Will take at Face Value (from bank) lol.
How much should dealers pay: whatever floats their boat. If I can’t make money on something not a buyer. In bay auctions on 40 pct halves after shipping and fees I don’t think I even get BV.
Guy I see setup at shows who runs a shop doesn’t pay more than 50-60 pct MV (TPG, CW Trends, BV) on anything. Says “Don’t care how far below bid, MV,melt, or even if it’s CAC (means nothing to him). If they complain we quickly show them the door.”
I bought a 40% Silver Kennedy for well over $700 yesterday. It is graded MS67
The white elephants of junk silver. Those and war nickels.
Don't forget .800 fine Canadian silver. Those are also a tough sell.
The market wants .900 fine US silver and discounts most everything else when it comes to coins that actually circulated. The market also wants significant quantities, not just a few coins.
Current wholesale price is about 7x face. How close you can get to that depends on how many you have and how far downstream you are from a market maker. They can be a tough sell.
They are the poor stepchild in the bullion market, not sought by those who look to buy readily fungible silver.
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When searching halves I prefer my silver to be 90%, but the coin gods are not so giving so I end up with like 15-20 40% for every one 90% I find.
Wholesale has been 85% of melt for years.
Right now this is a steal.
Canadian silver is a steal as well today.
I know one dealer that buys everything at 50% of value, even a double eagle.
I'm very fortunate. Two of my favorite LCS 's , they offer me $1.50 under spot for the 40%'ers. The Wartime, I turned in a roll the other day. She gave me $1 a piece!
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For sure. A mind blowing SMS high grade error that I have been chasing for years.
First time I saw It I got outbid.
Years later, I saw it in a private collection.
This year, I got outbid.
Offered higher and got the coin
You can't do anything with them other than sell them for the "silver" value, which is actually zero. I have yet to find anyone that will separate the silver out so to me they are not 40% silver. I will buy for a buck each is all, and then when I've accumulated enough (100 or more) I'll sell as a lot. If I get 1.75 each I'm happy. Keep in mind, for me, this may take several years. Not a dealer here but will buy an occasional collection if I come across one.
bob
Check out MJPM.com (Corvallis, Oregon)
He's offering to buy 40% silver clad JFK halves for around 6X face (and sell for 7.86X face).
Might be a place to consider if you accumulate 50/+ pieces in the future.
Should be worth around 4/9 of the 90% halves. I don't understand the hostility to these as with the modern gold commems. that have around 1/4 ounce of gold. Any "new" gold or silver coin should be worth at least melt.
Looks like EOC is offering $700 for 40% kennedy's. I would sell them to him.
You have to mash them with a hammer first
My first thought was 40%
Very interesting. I didn't realize these couldn't be used for their silver content. I wonder why they can't be separated.
I never bothered with them. On the rare occasion I come across one in change, I just put it back in circulation.
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They can be separated but the cost of refining is prohibitive. Although the same can be said for 90%. Most of it trades as silver and doesn't get refined.
I think the trashing of the 40% coins on this thread is overdone. They refine silver PLATE all the time to get the copper which is only $3 per pound. They certainly could refine the 40% halves if they wanted.
Whenever I am buying silver from someone and they try to include 40% I always lowwwwwwwwwwball them because I don't want them.
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Recently searched $1000 face value half dollars. Found twelve 40% in 100 rolls. Along with one 90% (a 1964) found in the 2000 coins, according to my calculations, that's a little north of two ounces of ASW that I found. Apparently, refiner operations are not sophisticated enough to deal efficiently with the lower content silver coins like 40% silver halves and 35% war nickels. They want to make their money on 90% and call it a day.
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.-Albert Einstein
Copper prices are pushing $5: https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/copper
And yet many characterize silver plate as not worth bothering with.
What is the going buy price for 90% silver?
You should set them aside and sell them for more money
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Well, save them for me then, I'll buy them from you at a dollar each and send you the stamps to mail it to me.
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A lot of metal is never refined at all and is just thrown into ladles of molten metal to affect the alloy and lower the temperature. Huge amounts of coin is used this way in industry. My understanding is most of the 40% is used to make silver contacts in relays and busses.
70% of coins made in the world in the last half of the 20th century (excluding US) have been melted in some manner. It would be higher but many coins are lost or otherwise destroyed. This will probably happen to US zinc and copper one cent coins as well as nickels before too much longer.
About 20x
They in fact can separate the silver out of the coin. However, the cost of doing so it beyond the value of the silver. Economics is what it is. Doesn't make sense to do so.
bob
85% was what I was offered last time I inquired locally or at a show. I've sold to Apmex and received better but was selling them full boxes.
Jim
https://www.specialtymetals.com/smelting-refining/silver-coins
Whenever I am buying silver from someone and they try to include 40% I always lowwwwwwwwwwball them because I don't want them.
So you want to cherrypick the seller's silver for the 90% only then. Full service buyer would buy ALL the silver the buyer has for sale to include 40%, warnicks, foreign, etc.
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.-Albert Einstein
Makes sense that a smelter would use roughly the same amount of btu’s (nat gas) to melt either coin. More return on btu’s spent with the 90%.
Yeah, they have to be refined at least twice, and you need a large quantity to make it worthwhile.
And I bet it had a spot as well. Lol😉
Hoard the keys.
If silver wasn’t at $25 we wouldn’t even be talking about them… with that said remember value is what a buyer will buy at and seller will sell for… if you don’t like a lowball offer then you don’t have to sell. Simple as that
I remember once when I was a kid back in the late70's arguing with a another kid in the neighborhood that had like 300 his grandmother gave him, I wanted to pay 55c, he wanted 60c.
Yeah, I have a couple of 1970 Dutch Guilder's I picked up in Germany then that are .577 troy ounces of silver and tried to sell them when silver was fairly high and could not get rid of them.
Jim
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Not to mention Canadian .500. Because 1967 Canadian was struck in both .800 and .500, most will only buy it as .500, of course. A friend of mine used to refine 1967 Canadian only. He made out OK.....
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What percentage would you estimate for U.S.?
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It's pretty easy to get rid of almost any silver now days especially if it's 800 fine or higher. Some even brings a premium to melt if it's popular.
Lots of people hate silver clad as much or more than clad. It is not only debased but it looks like good silver since the outside layers are good silver. Very little of it was ever saved, So little in fact that BU rolls are wholesaling for $115 or nearly $6 each. Gems of all these dates are elusive.
These coins are very easy to buy at melt and often they can be had at a nice discount to melt and that makes them very attractive at this time when 90% all has huge premiums. In the long run premiums and discounts vary upward and downward and usually reverse. While the discount for 40% hasn't varied so much the premium for BU certainly has. Some of the SMS 40% wholesales at $9 per coin. Gems and varieties (yes, and errors) can have massive premiums. There are several pretty neat varieties though most of them are subtle.
As long as most collectors ignore these coins there are going to be some big bargains. In this case it includes all the coins since they trade at such a good price for buyers.
Think of it this way, when silver traded at $5 an ounce the discount was 15%. Now at much higher prices it is still 15% but refinery costs haven't gone up so much.
They are a great long term hold and they are a great collectible.
I got $4.14 each on a lot of about 10 (ship) recently auctioned off on the Bay. Picked these up from bank at face recently. BV was $3.44 each. Pays my food bill for the week assuming I shop conservatively.
Frankly for me unless something get at face not something actively pursue.
Very few US coins have been melted except for 90% silver. ...Probably around 20%.
Not only does the US have a relatively stable economic system which protects coins and paper but it's rarely profitable and legal to melt them. The FED has been buying damaged coin for melting but it's a drop in the bucket compared to all the coins that are destroyed through misadventure. For instance there are perhaps 20 billion dimes that have been lost, are in landfill or were inadvertently recycled and the FED probably hasn't melted 500 million dimes all together. These coins are small, easily lost, and aren't worth the trouble of chasing so they get sucked up in vacuums and recycled in old cars.
World coins tend to get reminted periodically as economic systems change. This sort of thing was unusual back in the days of silver and gold. The coins wore out and were recoined but it was unusual to simply recall all the coins and destroy them. People wouldn't tender good metal anyway. But when government calls for base metal coins to be redeemed most all of it it comes in except for very low denominations that aren't worth the trouble.
40% has been melted but it's very difficult to estimate how much. I've talked to the smelters but never to the producers of low grade silver who are presumably the largest consumers of these. It's probably between 30% and 60% and probably closer to the high end.
We do forget that it is illegal to melt them, 'eh?
What do refiners do, resell them?
bob
They are a great long term hold and they are a great collectible.
I recently bought a set of the Kennedy 40% halves, 1965-1969. They appear to be gems, each one of them, beautiful coins. I paid $4 apiece for them. God knows I've spent $20 in far worse ways.
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.-Albert Einstein
Speaking of finding silver in half dollar boxes, two more boxes of halves yielded zero, nada silver. A little disappointed in this result but I did find a gorgeous,fully struck with full luster 1985-D. '85-D seems to be plagued with having a poor strike.
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.-Albert Einstein
So, it sounds to me like as far as "junk silver" goes, you stick to 90% U.S. constitutional silver ONLY.
So if your intent is stacking for profit, stay away from the foreign "junk silver", and below 90% U.S. "junk silver".
Good to know! Better to find out now rather than when you go to cash it in.
Does that make sense?