Will any common date silver coins ever become rare due to melting?

jesbroken

I've often wondered whether with all the melting that is occurring to common date silver if some may become valuable as a rarity? Probably not likely, but some of the older silver coins even some Walkers only had 3-4 million mintage. If half or more were melted, then would the AU and below become more valuable. Just curious.
Jim

Cougar1978

Why of course! Perhaps some rolls of BU 1964 dimes / solid investment buy?

alaura22

Is it even legal to melt coins?

BLUEJAYWAY

We will most likely never know.

jmlanzaf

I don't think much gets melted. It is cost prohibitive. Bags of 90% trade as they are.

JBK

@alaura22 said:
Is it even legal to melt coins?

Yes, with the exception of nickels and cents.

gumby1234

About 35 years ago I know of a dealer who's son had a melting operation attached to the same building. He would melt common silver coins by the 55 gallon drum. Roosies, and Washington quarters mostly. A few Merc 's as well. The dealer has since passed away and the son is one of the largest bullion dealers in the world.

BStrauss3

@alaura22 said:
Is it even legal to melt coins?

Depends... you can't melt cents and nickels due to a US Treasury regulation. Silver is ok...

The thing about rarity due to limited survival is how do you know? It would only be via indirect means, such as when dealers start to notice it's hard to find rolls of 1964 Quarters...

Sapyx

Logically, common date coins become rarer as time progresses, because "common" coins aren't spared from the scrappers while the rarer dates are.

They won't become "more rare" than originally rare coins because the collector base, as a whole, would become aware of this and shift market prices accordingly.

I seem to recall reading a Scrooge McDuck comic when I was young. Uncle Scrooge got the idea that he could create an artificially rare coin by cornering the market and offering double face value for a common-date circulating quarter, and buying up everyone else's examples of that quarter and destroying them, while keeping one example for himself. In the comic, his plan worked, and soon he was the proud owner of a unique quarter, worth much much more than all the money he had plowed into the buy-up scheme.

In the real world, this scheme would of course never work, even if one were able to somehow convince die-hard collectors to part with their examples of that coin for double face value. Someone would notice the sudden disappearance of that quarter from the market, and the laws of supply and demand would see the market value adjusted accordingly; other people would soon be prepared to pay double face value, or more, to own such a coin, long before it ever became unique. Scrooge's scheme would take far far longer than a human lifetime to complete, and cost far far more than the end-result unique coin could possibly be worth.

jesbroken

I'm afraid it's happening far more than one may think. Hope not, but I feel it is. When people these days inherit large sums of silver, many know absolutely nothing about coin markets, but have heard how much silver is going for and may sell immediately for silver value. This doesn't affect BU coins, but would most likely remove many common date circulated coins. Then that is just an opinion.
Jim

messydesk

For the most part, 90% silver coins don't get melted. They just trade as 90% silver coins. "Melt" usually refers to what they're worth rather than what needs to be done with them.

AUandAG

If there was a monetary advantage to melting silver coins it would be done. However, everyone knows how much silver is in a dime, quarter, etc and thus it trades at real value plus a premium. So no, I don't expect that melting is being done to any extent.
bob

jmlanzaf

@jesbroken said:
I'm afraid it's happening far more than one may think. Hope not, but I feel it is. When people these days inherit large sums of silver, many know absolutely nothing about coin markets, but have heard how much silver is going for and may sell immediately for silver value. This doesn't affect BU coins, but would most likely remove many common date circulated coins. Then that is just an opinion.
Jim

But it's another numismatic misnomer. When you sell "for scrap" or "for melt", 99.9% of those coins aren't truly scrapped or melted. There's no profit in it. They are below sterling fineness as well as 0.999 bullion. How would one recover the cost of that process? 90% gets resold as bags of 90%.

MrEureka

When silver shoots up quickly, lots of coins get melted. So yes, common coins will get scarcer. It will probably never matter for most super common coins, but there will be some winners. Especially if you consider things like Franklin Mint and modern Israel, which have modest mintages and often trade at small discounts even in normal times.

VTchaser

@MrEureka said:
When silver shoots up quickly, lots of coins get melted. So yes, common coins will get scarcer. It will probably never matter for most super common coins, but there will be some winners. Especially if you consider things like Franklin Mint and modern Israel, which have modest mintages and often trade at small discounts even in normal times.

Really? That sucks!

VTchaser

I prefer to collect 90% rather than bullion. But will buy some bars/rounds every now and then. 90% actually has some history behind it.

coinkat

It is more of a World Coin issue as MrE pointed out. I will add that the Pittman Act of 1918 likely had an impact on the rarity of the 1901 Morgan in MS. I suspect both are beyond the scope of what you were asking. There are harder to obtain World Moderns now and likely will become tougher at some point mainly because of the surviving population

MrEureka

@coinkat said:
It is more of a World Coin issue as MrE pointed out.

Although there are some pretty obvious candidates among modern US silver. Lots of modern commem silver dollars and silver proof sets have the potential to become much scarcer after the next big silver melt or two.

coinkat

That is fair, but there seems a less likely chance of those being melted. Think of the survival of the Franklin Mint sets for various countries in the 1979-84 time frame... some of the mintages were in the 250-1500 range before any calculation is contemplated for what was melted.

tincup

I've always been a fan of the Franklin Mint issues (in the aftermarket, not when they were issued!).

Actually some nice designs, and some very low mintages.

tincup

And yes... not telling the survival rate of the Franklin Mint issues.... they certainly were dumped into the melting pots! But still seem to be plenty of the American Express presidential series... lots of those were minted!

IFindCoins

The Big Silver Melt https://a.co/d/iFiARmF

Cougar1978

Seriously with their high pops would rather play the lottery.

Dug13

All of the refineries I've dealt with take "junk" silver coins.
They usually offer 80 - 90% of the "melt" value.

MrEureka

@coinkat said:
That is fair, but there seems a less likely chance of those being melted. Think of the survival of the Franklin Mint sets for various countries in the 1979-84 time frame... some of the mintages were in the 250-1500 range before any calculation is contemplated for what was melted.

I hardly do any bullion business, and even I sent more than 1000 U.S. silver proof sets to the melting pot, just for one client, last time silver got over $40. I imagine actual bullion dealers were melting huge quantities.

RichieURich

Eventually the most common silver Washington quarters from 1932 - 1964 will be the 1932-D and 1932-S!

Tom147

I been in the game since 1964. During the Hunt brothers buying frenzy around 1980, literally hundreds of millions of silver coins were melted. I still remember hundreds of people lined up at the local Holiday Inn with bags of coins as well as silverware, candlesticks, anything silver that was sold to be melted.

jesbroken

In 1980 my dad and I sold over $120 worth of silver coins and the dealer was set up in a motel between Bristol and Abingdon, VA. He said it would all be melted, whether true or not, I couldn't say. Cars were parked outside the room with people in them waiting. I assume with silver also. I have this feeling that a lot more were melted than is considered. JMO
Jim

CoinHoarder

I believe that many common date 90% silver coins will be unavailable, but nor rare, due to long term hoarding.

sellitstore

The relative rarity of the keys, semi keys and higher grade coins decreases over time. The slightly better coins comprise a larger percentage of the survivors.

Each time silver rises sharply I find myself parting with more and more "slightly better" coins that were spared from sale the last time silver spiked.

The XF W.L. halves and Mercury 10C went last time and now I have the AUs left. At $20-$25/coin watch how fast I sell those WLs, too.

I'm not the only one. Now there is an overabundance of slightly better coins but still plenty of the common ones around.

ambro51

I think it would be impossible to find a 1964 quarter in VG.