My Melt Data: Total of $38,000 in 3 weeks.
mustangmanbob
Posts: 1,894 ✭✭✭✭✭
I have been a member for 13 years, but do not post. I read and learn. I also want to thank 2 senior members who helped me, but will not name them unless they want to be ID'd.
With the run up in prices, I decided to thin the herd. I had some various purity gold jewelry that no one wanted from my mom's estate. It was melted and paid 98%
I went this route after the 2 local coin shops were at 70% and no buying.
All of the following was melted, no trip to a refinery, all melted on site. It was done in batches to exceed 50 ounces of pure silver, and paid 95% of spot in cash.
I started with junky stuff and worked to better
First out was 5 rolls of war nickels and 5 rolls of 40% halves pull 5 rolls of Roosevelts and various odd and end sterling junk passed down from deceased relatives.
Later was several pounds of Franklin Mint Sterling bought cheap, more Roosevelts and Washington quarters, Canadian and Australian coinage,
Another batch was a couple rolls of halves that were very tired, 9 Morgans that needed to go away, more rolls of 90%, more oddball sterling taking up space. and a lot of older Foreign silver and 70's and 80's foreign proofs.
I have not had the heart yet to melt Mercury, Barber, Walking Liberty type coins, and anything with an 18xx or 17xx date. I am not the owner of those coins, just a temporary caretaker.
Things like Silver Eagles, Mexican Onza's, other nations that had weight and purity on the coins are safe for now. No 5 ounce ATB or existent silvers bars were melted either.
Again, I would like to thank a LOT of people whose comments have helped me be educated and give direction.
Comments
Do I understand you correctly. you melted these at home and then where did you sell them?
Yes, please let us know who is paying 98% on melted gold jewelry of various purity gold. Same with the melted silver.
He who knows he has enough is rich.
the stackers on the precios metals forum would love to know
I get 80% of spot for bush bars melted from gold I have mined. They are not refined bars, just melt and the gold purity from my gold mine runs around 90% with the remaining 10% being a mix of silver and copper.
do you get cash for the silver content?
You were lucky, many places arent paying that now, In fact on sterling and such, several refineries have stop taking it across the country momentarily.
Timing is everything.
Congratulations to the OP.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
I've heard the word "melt" thrown around inaccurately. Why would anyone "melt" coins that are already in an ideal form for buying and selling? https://topsbest-precision.com/blog/melting-point-of-silver/
And yet the wholesalers have stopped buying 90%. So the form is not ideal for the volume being sold. Comex bars are 0.999 which is the "ideal form" required for institutional buyers who are not going to stack bags of 90%
I agree that "melt" gets used somewhat generically, but at current prices I don't think it can be ruled out as the demand is for 0.999 not 0.900.
All comments reflect the opinion of the author, even when irrefutably accurate.
The current buyers of large amounts of silver want .999 not .925 or .900 or .400, etc. The premiums/discounts paid versus melt value depend on market demand not what collectors think should be paid.
To answer questions, no, I did not melt at home.
The coins were melted, probably to become 9999 bars.
Dallas area ARA metals for Gold and Central refining for silver.
Payout was in cash. Gold was about 12K, and silver was 26K
Purity did not matter, be it war nickels, 40%, various foreign purities, 90%, sterling, whatever. It all went in the pot, melted, and then weighed and assayed.
If I could figure out why the picture is not loading, I would attach one of the melt ticket payouts, with weights, fineness, price per ounce, etc.
@mustangmanbob You are not the only one having issues loading photos. There is a bug. It has been happening for several days now.
Successful BST with drddm, BustDMs, Pnies20, lkeigwin, pursuitofliberty, Bullsitter, felinfoel, SPalladino
$5 Type Set https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/u-s-coins/type-sets/half-eagle-type-set-circulation-strikes-1795-1929/album/344192
CBH Set https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/everyman-collections/everyman-half-dollars/everyman-capped-bust-half-dollars-1807-1839/album/345572
It is hit and miss. Some will load and others won't. When you come back and try again, sometimes it does load and sometimes fails again.
Successful BST with drddm, BustDMs, Pnies20, lkeigwin, pursuitofliberty, Bullsitter, felinfoel, SPalladino
$5 Type Set https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/u-s-coins/type-sets/half-eagle-type-set-circulation-strikes-1795-1929/album/344192
CBH Set https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/everyman-collections/everyman-half-dollars/everyman-capped-bust-half-dollars-1807-1839/album/345572
In my experience 98% would be very high especially in this volatile market. I’m expecting some pullback from the highs we saw this past week, easily more than 2%. Whoever paid 98% hopefully had this material sold or is more optimistic than I am about what might happen in the short term future.
At today's high silver price I would also sell any of the common material you have held back for "numismatic" reasons. This is the time to be rid of common material. If the chaos that is fueling the current high metals prices lessens so will the metal prices.
I was in my favorite B&M recently when a farmer came in with a bucket of Peace Dollars. I speculated that he sold them to the shop at this time not just because of high .900 silver by price but also because farmers here are stuck with no market for their soybeans and he needed some cash. These Peace dollars had probably been in the family for many decades. I tried to make an estimate based on what I saw on the table in plastic tubes, 20 coins to a tube.100 tubes X 20coin/tube=2000 coins. All Peace Dollars. Nice payday for the farmer.
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, it expects what never was and never will be.---Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President of the United States of America, 1801-1809. Jefferson was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence.
Nice payday for the farmer.
Nice payday depending on what the B&M actually offered? RGDS!
The whole worlds off its rocker, buy Gold™.
BOOMIN!™
Wooooha! Did someone just say it's officially "TACO™" Tuesday????
Great prices!
I thought it was dangerous to melt war nickels because of the manganese.
I would have thought that the war nickels would require special handling in melting.
I read somewhere that war nickels had to go through the refining process twice because of the metals that they are alloyed with.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
Sounds like I should have bought the SLV etf, rather than 90%, a few years ago when I was stacking. A ready market and you know the price.
Wasn't any of my business what the shop had to pay for all those Peace dollars but I looked at the market price on the board and silver spot was at around $48/oz. while the farmer was in the store. I'm pretty sure my big ears heard the owner tell the farmer, "we sell at $38 apiece, buy at $33." Owner wrote a check to the farmer for in excess of $60,000 I would think. I'm sure the shop did what I would do and nitpicked through that lot later looking for high grades and better dates to sell to collectors. I'm not in the "inner circle" there though so I'll never know what goodies were actually in the lot.
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, it expects what never was and never will be.---Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President of the United States of America, 1801-1809. Jefferson was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence.