Silver, what are you keeping?
OnWithTheHunt
Posts: 1,301 ✭✭✭✭✭
I've been a collector for most of my life and have a modest stash of silver coins, (90 percent, war nickels, proof sets and foreign coins) acquired over the years that I plan to sell but there is a significant amount that I prefer to keep or am on the fence about. Keep list includes a circulated set of Franklin halves that I built with my dad, proof set of Washington quarters 1936-64, a complete silver state quarter proof set, a silver Roosevelt proof set 50-64,some nice classic commemoratives and a few silver dollars.. Not quite sure what to do with a circulated Mercury set minus the 16D and 42/41D. With so much silver going to the smelters I'm wondering what some others here are planning to keep.
Proud recipient of the coveted "You Suck Award" (9/3/10).
4
Comments
At some point everything in my collection has a price. It’s up to me to decide what that price is.
Holding on to most of my 10oz bars, Morgans, and rolls of walkers. Everything else is slowly being sold off.
I'm moving what appears to be less desirable. junk, then 90%, then .999 generic, then silver eagles. With the price run up, eagles seem to be king. At $75-80 they had a slight premium, now at $95 even that premium has evaporated over .999...although more liquid than generic.
Bare Bones: The only "90%" I'm keeping are a half dozen Seated Liberty pieces (quarters and halves; VG-F "details"); maybe 10 Morgan Dollars from an old Dansco Date Set album I had years ago, mostly the different Mint Marks; and a few Half Dollars with sentimental value from when I played the Tooth Fairy...
Successful BST transactions with: SilverEagles92; Ahrensdad; Smitty; GregHansen; Lablade; Mercury10c; copperflopper; whatsup; KISHU1; scrapman1077, crispy, canadanz, smallchange, robkool, Mission16, ranshdow, ibzman350, Fallguy, Collectorcoins, SurfinxHI, jwitten, Walkerguy21D, dsessom.
We will be seeing $120 before long. The premium will return with price stability. My guess is that $90 will act as a floor for a while before the next move up. The world is consuming more silver than it is making for the last 4 or 5 years with no end in sight for the next few years, and while there is enough stockpiled to prevent a panic for now there isn't anything in the near future to keep a lid on the price.
Registry Name: RonDayVous - Foreign date sets and 20th Century American Typeset
Keep what you like for whatever reason but also keep things that are unusual whether you like them or not. Just get rid of the junk you don't like. Unusual is stuff like war nickel varieties in attractive condition above F. These are numerous but being melted just as fast as the junk common coins yet very few survive in grades over F.
I just sold around $400 face of heavily circulated Mercury dimes and SLQs. Most of the quarters were dateless. I’m hanging on to the dated SLQs, and my BU rolls of Kennedy halves.
Like others, I expect silver to continue to drift higher. In just wanted to cash in on some of my less desirable 90% material.
Dave
Refineries not accepting alloyed silver. Buried in 0.999. That means most bullion / coin dealers really don't want to buy it from us.
The pardon is for tyrants. They like to declare pardons on holidays, such as the birthday of the dictator, or Christ, or the Revolution. Dictators should be encouraged to keep it up. And we should be encouraged to remember that the promiscuous dispensation of clemency is not a sign of political liberality. It is instead one of those valuable, identifying marks of tyranny.
Charles Krauthammer
I'm on the fence at this point, but looking to keep my full Franklin set of mostly uncirculated, my Mercury's (not full), some ASE's, I have about 30 Silver State quarters, but if the price keeps going up, they're gone...
Just be sure to spend most of your profits on coins that were the same price before the run up in silver. You take a profit and might even have a little more silver or other metal.
Everyone can do it the way we want to but just don't forget that whatever comes on the market for the next few years is probably going to be melted. Most is not much picked over because it flows to jewelry stores and coin shops. The proprietors pick out dead stock and new arrivals to make shipments for melt. Most buyers want the most metal for their money or lean this way which means they'd favor a bag of Roosie dimes over anything accumulating in the coin shop.
So it's collectors who will be the stewards of what survive.
Copilot-
_Take profits however you like, but remember that anything you sell into this
market is entering a melt stream. For the next few years, most fresh material
is going straight to refiners. Coin shops and jewelry stores pull out the
obvious dead stock, but almost nothing gets real numismatic triage. Buyers
chasing metal weight will always choose a bag of Roosies over the odd pieces
sitting in a dealer’s case.
That means the only reason certain coins survive at all is because collectors
choose to keep them intact. We’re the stewards of whatever escapes the melt
furnace, not the market. If you want your profits to compound, put them into
coins that were already correctly priced before silver ran up—otherwise you’re
just trading metal for metal._
I have very little "junk silver." I do have some BU sets, like Roosevelt Dimes, Franklin Half Dollars and a short set of Walkers from 1941 to 1947. The price of silver bullion might suck the numismatic value out of those coins as it has done to common date gold. I am not planning on selling, however.
If the bullion price gets to my 19th century and early coins, the U.S. dollar is in big trouble.
This means they aren’t doing much refining then. Just melting and forming bars.
This is ideal time to get rid of common silver coins. Don't get sentimental about them. If the price of silver declines the value of the common silver coins will decline rapidly. There is probably a lot more "above ground" silver than most want to admit. The fact that refiners don't seem to want much other than .999 may be an indication that this is true.
My opinion: Don't get greedy and miss your chance to cash out of the common "stuff."
Keeping my Morgan, Peace & WLH collection. Sold some modern Commemorative Dollar proofs, ASE proofs and ASE on Saturday. Have a small amount of 1964 Washington's & Kennedy's that will go next with some Canadian 80% Mint sets (each is ~ 1.1 troy ozs of .999 based on dollar, half, quarter & dime in set). My Dad bought those direct back then for about $1.50 USD.
Refineries are still buying 90% at $9 back of spot.
It's a bad time to be panic selling when the buyers are lined up as far as the eyer can see many of whom don't really care what it costs.
Refineries are backed up and they will stay backed up until the amount of silver in the pipeline is commensurate with its value. I would guess this will take at least three years. It's a moving target based on sentiment. Buyers will continue buying to extend their ability to operate until there is a surplus of silver as evidenced by a price drop or filling the new safe they bought for it. I've already heard of small producers forced out of the market by lean inventories or an inability to raise prices. The buyers are going to stay in line and might be joined by short sellers trying to stay solvent and macroeconomic forces. Declining interest rates and distrust in currencies can easily spill over into more upward pressure on prices which have already dragged the refiners into exhaustion.
Whatever price we settle at (wide range really), is likely to keep the refineries busy for years. We have little control over what they melt but we have absolute control over what we keep.
Keep the good stuff.
The vast majority of my junk silver are in US Mint products or in coin albums. So they’re not going anywhere. I have some remainders but they are mostly barber and mercs and I don’t feel like selling those. So probably will stay where I am.
I basically agree. It's always a good time to take profits and if you have silver then why not. But even if there's twice or even three times as much silver as I estimate the refineries can't expand fast enough to satisfy demand and building capacity is risky because it will be underutilized once the silver is melted. Since most refinery output is 999 bars there will be a drop in above ground supply except 999 for years.
Me, personally? I'm selling off the junk that nobody wants - a wartime nickel with thick verdigris covering the date [fortunately, not covering the mint mark!], as well as the damaged and cleaned 90% silver stuff I bought for cheap.
But most of what I bought, I bought because I like it. I am not in the mood to sell it, don't need to sell it, and am not interested in selling it. So I'm one of the idiots that will hold until the price drops back down again...and I'll still have it in 20 or 30 years when the next big surge hits!
Serving the greater Mechanicsburg and Camp Hill, PA area
https://zenithbullionconsulting.wordpress.com/
Keeping it all. Started stacking in the 60's. ( don't read to much into that. I'm not sitting on a ton of silver ) I've had it this long, riding out the Hunt Brothers fiasco and a few more price surges over the years. Probably not the smartest move, especially considering I bought a crapload of silver dimes at 2 for a quarter. I should take the profit but just can't seem to let it go.
I sold off a lot of my bullion silver and junk at ~$40 and was pretty proud of my profits (mostly bought ~$20). Then the run-up started. Oh well. Taking profits is never bad. I'm now looking at selling some lower quality silver from my collections and a few SAEs I don't care about. I also just remembered I have a couple pounds of jewelry scrap, sterling I was given for making new jewelry that I've never gotten around to. I think I'll see if a dealer in the area is interested in that.
Anything that I don't have a duplicate of in my collection gets kept. There's a couple exceptions though. Right before silver started going crazy, I bought a handful of junk USPI pesos that I don't see myself selling. I'm also keeping my war nickels since no one wants them
Sold all of my silver bullion ~ $70 an oz. Keeping some sentimental pieces and some other silver coins displayed in my coin cabinet. No more “stacks” of silver.
Keeping all of my pre-33 gold no matter what. It’s my main interest.
My plan is to keep only the numismatically interesting pieces. Good time to get rid of the common stuff.
Collector, occasional seller
Sold off and melted
All Foreign with dates starting with 19 or 20, bought as junk over the years.
All non BU war nickles
All 40%
$300 or so face of common 90%
maybe 20 skanky morgan and peace dollars.
A lot of random Sterling jewelry, candlesticks, place settings, Franklin Mint, etc.
Sounds like a good sample of most of the above ground silver. Add in some silver rounds, eagles, and bars and scrap jewelry and ya' just about had it.
I'm keeping one completed set (Dansco album) of each that I've built e.g. mercs, Roosevelt's, Washington's, etc., and silver that might have sentimental value, which is very small quantity. Otherwise, everything else is slowly being sold off e.g. graded and raw silver eagles, silver bars and rounds, raw 90% silver, misc. gold, platinum, silver jewelry.
I'll use the proceeds to plunge back into rare coins, home and auto projects.
USAF (Ret.) 1985 - 2005. E-4B Aircraft Maint. Crew Chief and Contracting Officer.
✓ Everyman Mint State Carson City Morgan Dollars (1878 – 1893)
✓ Morgan Dollar GSA Hoard (1878 – 1891)
✓ Everyman Mint State Lincoln Cents (1909 – 1958)
✓ Matte Proof Toned Lincoln Cents (1909 – 1916)
I'm not at a point where I need extra cash right now, so I'm keeping all of it. Maybe if I decide I'd like to go after a nice coin i don't have ready cash for, I'll consider selling some 90% or generic rounds. Maybe.
Ditto re the foreign silver. The common 90% silver including FR-AG Mercs from the teens and 20s.
"Seu cabra da peste,
"Sou Mangueira......."
I'm sitting on my pile
I enjoy everything I have and have no need for immediate cash
I figure if, for instance, silver drops 50% my enjoyment of owning won't drop 1%
Even the tubes of mixed 90% dimes are cool to heft not to mention books of ASEs, Walkers etc.
"Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working" Pablo Picasso
I sold off a little silver, some vintage bars that spot silver price caught up with.
Gyit a little walking around money but probably should have kept a few I let go.
I did okay, the dealer did okay and has some of the pieces in his cases for eye candy.
I kept the more vintage cool valued stuff at this point but may find another collector for those at some point IF I find somewhere else that will provide the same returns.
I agree. Just don't forget you can trade junk for good stuff almost straight up ounce for ounce. It can cost less than a 5% premium and then your junk is protected from any retreat in silver prices. For 20 bucks and a roll of junk washingtons a dealer might just trade you a roll of nice G to F standing libertys. They're sending a lot of great coins off to be melted.
I did a cursory purge when silver passed $50/oz and got rid of rolls... now that silver is almost double that, I'm looking a little harder! The last page of my 7070 has all the Bicentennial stuff... I opted for a silver proof set... and the slot for an ASE and other commemorative. I also found a partial set of Mercury Dimes... around 25 pieces...
Still keeping Seated Liberty coins, 10 Morgan Dollars, and a few 90% Halves that have sentimental value...
Successful BST transactions with: SilverEagles92; Ahrensdad; Smitty; GregHansen; Lablade; Mercury10c; copperflopper; whatsup; KISHU1; scrapman1077, crispy, canadanz, smallchange, robkool, Mission16, ranshdow, ibzman350, Fallguy, Collectorcoins, SurfinxHI, jwitten, Walkerguy21D, dsessom.
Keeping the large (5 oz and 1 lb) quality material such as ATB's and Noahs Arc. Older worn uninventoried items such as Barber dimes, quarters and halfs can go. Just tiddying up more than anything.
USAF veteran 1984-2005
Keeping all my silver, which includes 90%, 40%, silver dollars, and bullion. If I could more easily liquidate, I would trade the 40% silver and cull 90% for gold coins to fill my dansco 7070 page.
"But seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you" Matthew 6:33. Young fellow suffering from Bust Half fever.
BHNC #AN-10
JRCS #1606
I have entertained some offers, but I can't seem to part with anything at this time, I will probably regret it later, but until I need the funds, I like knowing I have a nest egg if I ever have a need.
Successful BST:here and ATS, bumanchu, wdrob, hashtag, KeeNoooo, mikej61, Yonico, Meltdown, BAJJERFAN, Excaliber, lordmarcovan, cucamongacoin, robkool, bradyc, tonedcointrader, mumu, Windycity, astrotrain, tizofthe, overdate, rwyarmch, mkman123, Timbuk3,GBurger717, airplanenut, coinkid855 ,illini420, michaeldixon, Weiss, Morpheus, Deepcoin, Collectorcoins, AUandAG, D.Schwager, blu62vette,
All common date coins including my BU Franklins and some BU Morgan’s from childhood will all be going.
Retail has been fantastic up to this point - holding back a lot for when silver goes higher. I believe it has potential to go considerably higher - many players even pricing material ahead of current market in anticipation of higher prices (bull market strategy).
Definitely keeping all the hand-poured stuff, the Australian Lunars, the Dan Carr pieces, the "Art" bars, the Silver Eagles and anything dated older than 1946 which include Junk and/or circulated Walkers, Mercs, SLQ, Barbers,ect...Will also keep anything graded, but that is now smaller representation. I need to determine what's left and at what point I might offer the other things outside of these categories!
I’ve sold off maybe 2/3 of anything I own that is bullion-related, and I’m in the process of selling most of the rest. One of the things I held onto until now was a stash of low grade Barbers dimes, quarters and halves. But considering that it now takes, for example, only a couple of rolls of heavily circulated Barber half dollars to buy a really nice 64, I can’t justify keeping any of the low grade stuff.
Doggedly collecting coins of the Central American Republic.
Visit the Society of US Pattern Collectors at USPatterns.com.
Buying , selling, and trading. It’s uncharted territory, while a new group of buyers replaces an old group of hoarders. As for me : I’m only keepin’ the faith.
``https://ebay.us/m/KxolR5
Sell them all for melt, gold and silver. Then maybe numismatic collecting will be important again, after all the trash gets taken out to pasture 🤷🏼♂️
No need now to liquidate any of the silver I’ve accumulated over the last 25 years or so. Over those years I’ve been able to look through 2 or 3 local dealer’s junk silver buckets and had pulled out so many AU-UNC. Mercury and Roosevelt dimes Washington quarters, Walkers, Franklin and Kennedys. These are really nice looking coins and I would feel a loss for our hobby, if I were to turn them in for melt. These would be gone forever and I’m not willing to do that. I will eventually pass them to family members with suggestions on keeping them. Modern ASE and modern Commems I would probably set aside for melting.
Keeping my Morgan and Peace Dollar sets, a few OBW pre-64 rolls from banks that are historical and local to my geography. Other than that, it's all headed off to the big melt. RGDS!
The whole worlds off its rocker, buy Gold™.
BOOMIN!™
Wooooha! Did someone just say it's officially "TACO™" Tuesday????
Retiring at 55, what day is today?
I've been getting rid of most of my silver for years. I started with the low fineness and hard to move stuff. If the price stays high it will be 999 next.
Eventually I want to get it down to just the most unusual stuff, high grades, and Gem. I've really enjoyed cherry picking my own coins and trying to weigh whether or not future collectors will care about each coin.
A lot of collectors are appalled by the idea of any coin being destroyed but most coins in circulation, and not, are just common junk and there's no means to save it. They're all doing what they were designed to do, transfer wealth from one individual to another and their trip to the refiner is their last job. The silver coins had a long run and have been retired a very long time.
I'd like to dump many of my album sets Franklins, Walking Liberty, Barber halves, mercury dimes, Washington silver quarters. I don't look at them, and my kids aren't going to want them. Seems like a good time to clean up a bit for common stuff. Same with generic gold with little to no premium at this point.
The issue is getting even reasonable $ for them. My local shop is overrun with sellers and is not buying silver at the moment. When they were, they were paying 50x for halves when spot was 90ish.
Like many, I don't need to sell, but it sure seems like a good time to clean things up and take a profit to boot. I'll probably upgrade a few type coins. At this point the idea of having one beautiful Walking Liberty half is more appealing than a couple sets of circulated examples...
Potter Isn't Selling, Potter's Buying!
-
Your hobby is supposed to be your therapy, not the reason you need it.
And silver bells are still ringing.
Seeing more and more Roosevelt and Franklin sets moving on silver.
This is the kind of things that leads to just random bags of 90% surviving if you mean they are being sold as scrap.
I’ve sold perhaps half my silver and all my mint and proof sets which I had accumulated over the last 25 years. My wife is of course very happy now that she has more room for her shoe and purse obsession.