My grandfather found this in a dumpster. It appears to be lots of silver
markelman1125
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My grandfather found this in a dumpster, this is crazy.
How much silver is in this collection and how much dose a set like this worth ?
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Amazing find. Appears to be accidentally thrown away or stolen loot that was tossed as perps were being pursued? Who knows, but yes, it's a lot of silver and at $25.75 an ounce that's quite a haul.
bob
Wow, like $700 worth of silver just tossed in the trash. Unreal.
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You will need to put it on a scale that measures precious metals. The use of the term "pound" may mean they are not referring to a precious metals weight.
Finders keepers!!
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These may indeed be good silver, but don't spend the money yet. There are bars out there that look like currency made in silver but are actually just silver-plated copper. Take them to a coin shop and tell them you want to sell them if they text out OK. They may wish to do test cuts.
Wow... that's quite the dumpster dive!!
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Nice find. As @AUandAG said probably stolen and dumped. Current silver about $415. A set recently sold for $439. There is an ebay set with ask $1095.
Why was your grandfather in a dumpster?
i'm not certain if you are being facetious but during crazy times like we have been living in, the amount of amazing stuff pulled out of dumpsters/curbs is astonishing. a whole sector of youtube is dedicated to this. fwiw. upper-scale businesses/colleges have yielded amazing finds as well. (i worked in property management and we catered to quite a few well-to-do students (kids and adults) it is astonishing what they'd leave behind, even just from semester to semester.
i haven't done it but i have a lot of respect for people pulling very useful/valuable things to prevent them from languishing in the landfill and this includes alley-hunters.
He was probably throwing something out and it caught his eye.
If you read the paperwork, it says 1/4 pound (4 troy ounces)
ANA 50 year/Life Member (now "Emeritus")
Pulling out $400+ of silver.
Impressive find. Hard to believe someone would toss that not knowing what is there. Either a theft issue or a kid cleaning house with no idea what precious metals are.
Now the quarter pound thing has always confused me. I have seen this before. Anyone here shed any light on this? There are 12 troy ounces to the Troy pound. Not like the 16 oz/ pound we use at the grocery store. A 4 Troy Ounce bar would be a third of a Troy pound, not a quarter.
Yep, you put that back in the dumpster and you'll see me crawling right on in after it!
It would have been a better find if it had included a Sigma PM Verifier.
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i would totally dive in after one of those!
Yes, it does. That eliminates the need for a scale as long as the silver pieces themselves are also marked. (Buyers of such items want them to be marked.)
That is quite a dumpster find!
Yes. you are correct. SB just sold two of those for $249 on 2/24. So it is about 31 per TOZ.
Great find but I'm more that sure someone is missing these and desperately searching for them.
But a 1/4 Troy pounds is 3 Troy ounces
Probably stolen items that were tossed by some Perps on the run.
I know some of the drivers that operate the trucks. They have said they find/get all sorts of stuff. More power to them, jmo
But it's the Washington Mint - so that's par for their course :-)
ANA 50 year/Life Member (now "Emeritus")
In a dumpster??? That's insane! I'm going to have to go dumpster diving next weekend
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The paperwork says 4 troy ounces. The use of "pound" was strictly a marketing gimmick directed at the general public target market.
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upon second thought. i have pulled a lot of cardboard boxes off the top of piles of other cardboard from the top of big metal dumpsters after big businesses have finished emptying their delivery trucks and stocking their stores. right off the top, nice n clean, right into the van. saved me a ton of trouble and cost. amazing how much cardboard goes to the landfill. IIRC, our somewhat local one has a separate bin for several things, including cardboard. hope it gets recycled. love seeing that on the labels. i reuse virtually all my shipping materials in one way or another.
i have bought quite a few from lowes though, specific to the types of items i've shipped. (non-coins) quite happy with their selection.
Could be a person moving , or relationship breakup ,10 yrs ago..found a live hamster in a dumpster..under the hamster.. was a black trash bag ,inside the bag, were coins, partial sets in folders.. take was over $400 & girlfriend took the hamster
Apropos of nothing, the story reminds me that I keep thinking the word hamster should be spelled hampster.
Not unheard off: about 2 months ago, guy brings in 3 Franklin Mint albums that the elderly lady next door tossed out in the garbage. Just before the trash folks got there, he got them. it turned out to be about 1400.00 worth of sterling I bought after weighing it out. . He was tickled pink
And those bars in the Op's post are legit 4 oz .999 , they come in all the time. Not from a dumpster however.
Too bad he didn’t find a Stella
Marron
I don’t think I’d recover from
Something like that
Martin
No kidding! I find all sorts of stuff while searching dumpsters for aluminum cans for recycling: vacuum cleaners, vacuum sealers, a 2-lb spool of copper wire, chairs, a nice rattan recliner, end tables, lamps, two Keurig coffee makers, unused mason jars, and other kitchenware and appliances, I even found a case of unopened 16-oz Budweisers and a bag of weed in a dumpster. Finding small amounts of cash (<$20) isn't unusual either.
Boat landings and college football games are always good for empty cans (UBCs) and unopened beers. I've become hooked on recycling UBCs and I love it. It takes me back to childhood when my friend and I would turn in pop bottles to buy candy. Nowadays, it's not hard to find $50 in UBCs and a six-pack or two at tailgate areas in a few hours, particularly with aluminum at record high prices. A 12-oz can is worth 2.5 cents now. The proceeds now get converted to silver rounds, silver dollars, and junk silver at the local coin shop near the recycling center.
My former roommate in college, after he moved to an apartment, used to stock his refrigerator by dumpster diving with his girlfriend at a nearby grocery store. They essentially ate for free, though they didn't have much choice shopping that way. His frig might have perhaps 20 pounds of cheese, dozens of eggs, and steaks and he'd be eating omelets, quiche, steak and eggs, and cheesesteaks for weeks.
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for anyone wanting to go through the trouble that has a pickup or van, going through alleys on recycling day could yield a nice haul. granted most cans probably won't be crushed so the space they'll take up will be enormous but there really isn't anything anyone can say if the recyclers are on public property, street or alley. although i'm sure someone could get the cops to come and make a scene but if done quick and early, it would probably work well and since different sections of the city have different days, it could keep someone busy.
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pretty sure there is a whole section on youtube for smelters of copper, aluminum and other metals making 1, 1lb or kilo bars or bigger.
I have a minivan and, with the seats down, can stuff 2000 cans into the back. Any garbage cans or bags placed on the road shoulder are free pickings. One learns where the heavy beer drinkers live in the area and target them when they put out their garbage for pick-up. The county I live in has no recycling, so I'm not taking UBCs from waste management companies.
Every now and then, someone accidentally dumps their bag of cans all over the roadway and my eyes get large. A few weeks ago, someone dumped about 300 cans all over the roadway and traffic ran over many of them before I came by. I was picking them up as fast as I could, and then people stopped to help me (they do that in rural areas). It's happened three times. Sometimes, someone will spot me on my recumbent bike picking up cans along the road and flag me down (I look like Santa on his sleigh with panniers and bags full of cans behind the seat). They direct me to their house where they have a cache of bagged UBCs. I'd ride home and then come back with the van. The best haul was an estimated 3500 UBCs. It took two trips to haul them home.
I've had the cops called on me easily a dozen times. Rednecks in F150s get suspicious and threaten to call. I say, "Go ahead, call them", and they do. The cops know me or have heard about me and we have a nice chat at 3 AM (ahead of garbage pickup). I also sneak onto private bars/boat landings at night but have never been reported. I've never tried to smelt aluminum bars. I don't know if the recycling center would pay more for them than UBCs.
Here's Trash Santa's sleigh with bags of goodies. When aluminum prices dropped to and hovered at about $0.65/lb for billet aluminum about 7-8 years ago, I filled my 2-car garage with aluminum cans waiting for the price to rebound. Sadly, it didn't rebound in time and I ended up cashing in over 3000 lbs of cans for only 32-35 cents a pound. Silver was low as well, so I did OK, overall.
That is an incredible find. Yes, there are often treasures found in the trash. Many possibilities as noted above. I sure wish I could find some 'trash' like that. Cheers, RickO
I've had items like this in the past that were 4 avoirdupois ounces. These actually do say 4 troy........
The currency bars that tend to be plated are the ones inscribed "ONE TROY POUND" (or similar) but do NOT state "SILVER" anywhere on them.
If the item has "999 SILVER" imprinted on it, then it has a better chance of being solid silver, of course.
One mana trash is another man's treasure.
Sure beats most Coinstar finds.
Quarter pound of Troy would be 3 oz wouldn’t it?
The Washington Mint indicated .999 Fine on these 4 ounce art bars that imitated currency. Other less scrupulous marketers have been known to silver plate copper, but it has been my observation these have no indication of silver fineness present.
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I weighed the bills on an electric scale and looks like there are aprox 4 troy oz per bar. And in total approximately 28 Troy oz
The weight is rounded to the a whole number
.999 fine silver On the certificate and the bars Maybe good
🎶 shout shout, let it all out 🎶
I don't hunt out dumpsters, but make no mistake I'm not above looking inside of certain ones (not restraints) and NO I'm not above climbing into one and dragging something out either
But, I've never found anything like that in a dumpsters, that would be a find of a lifetime, even one of the bars!
Thanks for sharing this with us!
"I Prefer Dangerous Freedom Over Peaceful Slavery"
Thomas Jefferson!