# Melt loss on pre-1965 coinage?



## fourninesAU (Jun 15, 2012)

Hi everyone,

I'm curious what your results are with melting pre-1965 US coin silver? I'm assuming the Mint was making everything plumb, full .900, but I've been told that this coinage actually melts down to about 89%-89.5%. 

Thanks for any thoughts.


----------



## publius (Jun 15, 2012)

First: Why would you melt coins? I recognize them as being 90% silver. I pay for them, calculating that they are 90% silver. I sell them (rarely) as if they are 90% silver. Others that buy from me see them as 90% silver. Prepers and survivalists want them in that form because they "recognize" the value when they are tendered as payment. See the trend here?

Second: Loss from any melt or dissolution could come in many ways including the feedstock being not mixed well, improperly formulated, contaminated or purposely adulterated.


----------



## fourninesAU (Jun 15, 2012)

I am considering starting a business buying silver at a wholesale level. Just trying to calculate margins.

If successful, I would be buying a few thousand ounces of coin silver per month, at this time I really don't have the outlet to sell it to third parties. I would just need to have it refined.


----------



## Irons2 (Jun 15, 2012)

Chinese Knock-offs contaminating the supply. It should get worse as time goes on.

http://coins.about.com/od/worldcoins/ig/Chinese-Counterfeiting-Ring/


----------



## fourninesAU (Jun 15, 2012)

I'm trying to find out if the authentic pre-1965 coinage is full plumb or not...


----------



## etack (Jun 15, 2012)

it would be plumb if it was from the mint. what Irons is saying is that if you buy a knockoff and include it in your melt it will lower the parentage. it could also be dirt and oxidization of the Cu when melted.

Eric


----------



## Golddigger Greg (Jun 15, 2012)

My thought is to keep the coins in their current form, rather than a unknown blob of some metalic content. They are recognisable as they are with a known value, anything you do to them from this point only increases your cost/unit and makes them less marketable for profit. The apparent losses are more than likely from coin wear from the time they were minted till they were salvaged/removed from circulation.


----------



## martyn111 (Jun 15, 2012)

Golddigger Greg said:


> The apparent losses are more than likely from coin wear from the time they were minted till they were salvaged/removed from circulation.



I agree entirely with the first part of your post, but, in the quote above I would disagree, coin wear wouldn't result in lowering the assay because any metal lost by wear and tear would be lost in the proportion of 90% silver 10% copper


----------



## goldsilverpro (Jun 15, 2012)

In a $1000 face bag of 90% dimes, quarters, or halves, they usually figure an average of 715 oz of silver because of wear, instead of the 723 oz when new.

If these are melted, I would think that, because of some copper oxidizing and ending up in the slag, the final silver percentage would increase and the final weight would decrease proportionally.


----------



## NobleMetalWorks (Jun 15, 2012)

I wouldn't melt junk silver either...

There are two truths that exist, there is the perceived truth, and the real truth.

If you keep your junk silver in coined form, you can always get the minted value, not the melt value for them, from someone. Because of wear and other factors this happens to be the perceived truth. Once you melt the silver and are left with whatever you produced from your melt, this is the real truth.

Plus if the world goes down the toilet tomorrow, you have a readily recognized commodity in a form that is easy to exchange for goods and services.

Scott


----------



## its-all-a-lie (Jun 16, 2012)

In my opinion, if you really want to know the silver content you should weigh 15-20 of the coins and refine them. Do the math after it is all done and you know if the mint lied to us or not.


----------



## Westerngs (Jun 16, 2012)

It is not that the mint lied to us.

The mint does not make their own coin blanks, they buy them. In their contracts, they stipulate that the blanks are to be X percent +/- a range. The same is true of the National Gold and Silver Stamping Act, it states sterling articles are to be 92.5% silver with an allowable low range down to 92.0%. Gold articles are allowed to be 0.3% gold lower than the stamped karatage.

Having seen many thousands of coins melted and assayed, they usually lose about 0.2-0.5% weight during melt. That does not mean the silver assay goes up, because the losses are proportional to the alloy content, so the assay stays the same.

Also, they tend to assay about 0.2% low, meaning a coin supposed to be 90% usually assays 89.8%.


----------



## nickvc (Jun 16, 2012)

Well I suppose if you tell your suppliers they can under assay their blanks then they will,it's not difficult. I used to bring in 100s of kilos of silver bars from coins when I worked for one of the big silver refiners and they never were below assay but then the mint here makes there own sheet and blanks and as I have stated before nothing below assay gets passed here, we don't have a margin of error except where the constraints of solder exist, 18 k and 22 k and silverware have to use solders under assay for them to work but the body of the item has to be plum.


----------



## DONNZ (Jun 16, 2012)

http://www.coinflation.com/

Go down to the second chart.
There's also a Silver Coin Melt Value Calculator at the bottom of the page if you have more that one of said coin.


----------



## fourninesAU (Jun 19, 2012)

Thanks for the great responses, everyone. Especially those which specifically addressed my question. 8) 

Very informative thread.


----------



## jewelerdave (Aug 18, 2012)

I melt down 90% all the time. 
typically when there are no buyers. when guys are not willing to pay spot for 90 but I can make it into fine and sell it for a lot more, its an obvious answer of pure economics. 
however.
When melting 90% lots i find it comes in just at or a hair below. the culprate, Usually a dime that is not 90%, you get one Cu/Ni clad in there or a %40 half and yeah, the assay comes out a little lower. When I get a little Ni showing up int he Xray assay that's the obvious reason. If you have ever sorted a random mix of 90% you find some clad in there. Especially the non searched lots. Or if you have ever delt with a large bag of halfs, you will find a couple 40's, Part of it I blame on ignorance, part of it I blame on older guys eyes that are just not as sharp as they used to be. And when you look at a thousand coins dates its easy to miss a few.

So yes. I personally have sent about $7000 face into 9999 fine over the last year. The stuff gets more rare every day. same with %40 silver. war nicks etc. 

The melt loss is low. but it depends on how dirty the stuff is. oxides have weight. Dirt also picks up other things and metals too. that grime burns away. And yes you do lose a little silver to evaporation.
Induction melting helps, Its fast and you dont have much loss.


----------



## RESET (Sep 5, 2012)

I may have an opportunity to buy some coin. This will be my first venture into buying silver. What percent of spot should I offer so I can still sell at a profit but still give them a good deal?


----------



## MysticColby (Sep 6, 2012)

there is no one answer to that. it's all about what sort of business model you want to have. but in general:
research the fees associated with how you'll sell them
account for potential misidentification (there's always a risk of fake stuff)
how much does it cost you to deal with them? (storage, time, security, chemicals, etc.)
basically, figure out the maximum amount that will still give you some sort of profit on average, know that buying for anything less than that will work, then pick how generous you want to buy to the seller. If you pay more, they'll keep coming back.


----------

