How is silver bought?

[never2late]

I was just wondering, when I go into a coin shop to sell my silver halves (which I wont be doing for a good while, don't you worry), how does the process work?

I mean today silver is at $26.76 and obviously they will not give me that price because then they would not be able to make a profit.
But do they just calculate how many oz i have based on silver content and then pay me a price under spot?
Or do they buy a completely different way?
Or heck is there a more profitable way to sell the silver, perhaps through a refinery?

Just wondering.

 

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[never2late]

I guess the best response i could come up with is huh?

So your saying that a 40% half is really worth 19.1 x $.50? Is that what you mean?

And if so, then what about a 90%er

 

[endthefed13]

What I do is I call periodically many different coin shops and say ( just to see even if I have no intention of selling ) "what do you pay right now for 40% kennedy's?" Usually the guy will say something outrageous like $1.00, $1.50 under spot. But if you can find someone who will pay you within $0.20-$0.35 per coin to spot value, I'd take that any day. Use the coin melt calculator website and know what you should get before you go in there. They're right, ditch the low purity first and trade for gold .99999 fine or silver .9999 fine or junk U.S. 90% silver. Me, I'm still holding low purity (40% and 35% nickels) for that huge skyrocket in silver, then it's sell and buy gold time. Node Im Sayin?

 

[packerbacker]

I'll try and make this a little easier to understand. This is how it would work for me about now. Silver is at $26.76. That makes a 90%er worth $9.68 and I could probably get $9.25 for one at the shop I deal with but I don't sell 90's.
A 40%er contains $3.96 worth of silver right now. I'd expect to get around $3.25-$3.50 for one. I don't pay tax if I'm dealing with a $1,000 or more deal. So, I'd take about 300 of the 40%ers with me. Say I get $3.50 each for them that would give me $1,050.00. Now, say the guy sells me .9999 silver rounds or bars at $27.25 an ounce (that's $.49 over spot which is about what I'd expect or maybe even a little less) I could now purchase 36+ ounces of the pure stuff!!
You could try and play the up/down game. Hold on to your $1,050.00 dollars for a while and hope silver goes down some and then buy but, the way things are right now, get your pure stuff and sit on it. Heck, it only cost you about $150.00

 

[65gt350]

I was just wondering, when I go into a coin shop to sell my silver halves (which I wont be doing for a good while, don't you worry), how does the process work?

I mean today silver is at $26.76 and obviously they will not give me that price because then they would not be able to make a profit.
But do they just calculate how many oz i have based on silver content and then pay me a price under spot?
Or do they buy a completely different way?
Or heck is there a more profitable way to sell the silver, perhaps through a refinery?

Just wondering.

Most of the dealers that I deal with either pay an amount behind spot or (x) face. Here are the examples with a spot of $26.75 and $100 of 40% halves.

1) Dealer quotes $1.10 behind spot. The math is $26.75-1.10 * .1475 (ASW)* 200 (number of coins)= $756.68
2) Dealer quotes 7.5 times face. The math is 7.5 x 100 (Face Value of coins) = $750.00

The "spread" (amount behind spot, or difference between 7.5 quote and 7.89 value) goes up and down based on dealer demand. In time like this (rapid price increase) the spread widens until the price stabilizes for a while and then it will start to shrink.

Hope this helps.

65GT350
B

 

[diggummup]

This is a little off topic but what about .925 (sterling) silver jewelry? I've noticed that it doesn't sell as high on a weight to weight ratio as do silver coins. I mean silver is silver right? Not to mention Sterling has a higher silver content than a 90%er does. Has anyone else noticed this? Is it because besides the coins being silver they have a slight numismatic value also? Any thoughts?

 

[fistfulladirt]

This is a little off topic but what about .925 (sterling) silver jewelry? I've noticed that it doesn't sell as high on a weight to weight ratio as do silver coins. I mean silver is silver right? Not to mention Sterling has a higher silver content than a 90%er does. Has anyone else noticed this? Is it because besides the coins being silver they have a slight numismatic value also? Any thoughts?

Wondered myself, maybe coin is easily indentified, and more in demand.

 

[jim4silver]

This is a little off topic but what about .925 (sterling) silver jewelry? I've noticed that it doesn't sell as high on a weight to weight ratio as do silver coins. I mean silver is silver right? Not to mention Sterling has a higher silver content than a 90%er does. Has anyone else noticed this? Is it because besides the coins being silver they have a slight numismatic value also? Any thoughts?

Wondered myself, maybe coin is easily indentified, and more in demand.

I can tell you why. Sterling is sent to refiners. Also, it sometimes has to be broken down because the interior of the pieces contain non silver material meant to give the item strength. So what may appear to be a solid sterling knife could have something in the handle that is non silver.

When you sell to a local coin dealer junk silver coins, they are generally resold to other coin collectors (unless they are culls), or to wholesalers who sell them as $1000 face junk bags. This can apply to 40%ers as well. Many of the big, national online dealers like Apmex, Tulving, etc, sell $1000 face junk bags of both 40% and 90% and buy them from customers as well. Their buy/sell price spread is not too bad on $1000 face bags from what I have seen looking at their websites, although I have never dealt with them nor have I ever accumulated anything near that much in junk (wish I had though). The notion that all 40%ers get melted is simply incorrect.

If all the 90% silver that was sold to coin dealers were to be sent strictly to refiners, you would be getting way less than face, because the refiner would be paying them way less than face. Refiners don't pay as much for items that are not .999 pure.

This is why I recommend people own .999 silver if they can get it cheap enough, because when the price of silver does rise super high in the future, the amount of junk silver that will be sold to coin stores by grandpa and others is gonna be huge. My view is that they are gonna unload their stash before the silver bug who bought his/her .999 silver bullion in the past couple of years.

There is virtually no numismatic premium for junk silver coins when you sell, unless you happen to have a rare year. Some coin dealers will charge a bit more for Walkers than Franklins and Kennedys, although I would rather have the later years because they usually have more weight per coin due to not being so highly circulated.

Just my 2 cents.

Jim

 

[diggummup]

This is a little off topic but what about .925 (sterling) silver jewelry? I've noticed that it doesn't sell as high on a weight to weight ratio as do silver coins. I mean silver is silver right? Not to mention Sterling has a higher silver content than a 90%er does. Has anyone else noticed this? Is it because besides the coins being silver they have a slight numismatic value also? Any thoughts?

Wondered myself, maybe coin is easily indentified, and more in demand.

I can tell you why. Sterling is sent to refiners. Also, it sometimes has to be broken down because the interior of the pieces contain non silver material meant to give the item strength. So what may appear to be a solid sterling knife could have something in the handle that is non silver.

When you sell to a local coin dealer junk silver coins, they are generally resold to other coin collectors (unless they are culls), or to wholesalers who sell them as $1000 face junk bags. This can apply to 40%ers as well. Many of the big, national online dealers like Apmex, Tulving, etc, sell $1000 face junk bags of both 40% and 90% and buy them from customers as well. Their buy/sell price spread is not too bad on $1000 face bags from what I have seen looking at their websites, although I have never dealt with them nor have I ever accumulated anything near that much in junk (wish I had though). The notion that all 40%ers get melted is simply incorrect.

If all the 90% silver that was sold to coin dealers were to be sent strictly to refiners, you would be getting way less than face, because the refiner would be paying them way less than face. Refiners don't pay as much for items that are not .999 pure.

This is why I recommend people own .999 silver if they can get it cheap enough, because when the price of silver does rise super high in the future, the amount of junk silver that will be sold to coin stores by grandpa and others is gonna be huge. My view is that they are gonna unload their stash before the silver bug who bought his/her .999 silver bullion in the past couple of years.

There is virtually no numismatic premium for junk silver coins when you sell, unless you happen to have a rare year. Some coin dealers will charge a bit more for Walkers than Franklins and Kennedys, although I would rather have the later years because they usually have more weight per coin due to not being so highly circulated.

Just my 2 cents.

Jim

So basically your saying that the average, say pound, of 90% silver coins will demand a higher price than a pound of .925 silver necklaces or flatware because of the "resale" ability of the coins (by dealers) versus the "non-resale" ability of the sterling whereas the majority of the sterling gets sent to a refiner for melting? Is that what i'm reading?
Also the sterling silver I am referring to is solid, not weighted. I have also noticed that the antique value of certain Sterling items does not even play a factor in the value of the object in a lot of cases lately. Although I did get over 200.00 recently for a sterling bracelet that weighed less than 2 ounces ,because it had a Gucci Stamp on it, go figure.
You seem to know what your talking about on the subject so maybe you can answer a question for me? Theoretically- Can I take 20 pounds of Sterling to a local refinery have them melt it down to .999 pure and make ingots for me, for a fee of course? And if so, would it be economically advantageous for me to have it done or would the cost outweigh the advantage?

 

[jim4silver]

So basically your saying that the average, say pound, of 90% silver coins will demand a higher price than a pound of .925 silver necklaces or flatware because of the "resale" ability of the coins (by dealers) versus the "non-resale" ability of the sterling whereas the majority of the sterling gets sent to a refiner for melting? Is that what i'm reading?

Yes, that is what I believe.

I personally have never dealt with refiners, I am going by what I have heard from coin dealers and from what I have read over the years.

I cannot answer your question about sending refiners sterling and having them make you silver bars. I would imagine others on here might know the answer to that question.

Jim

 

[diggummup]

So basically your saying that the average, say pound, of 90% silver coins will demand a higher price than a pound of .925 silver necklaces or flatware because of the "resale" ability of the coins (by dealers) versus the "non-resale" ability of the sterling whereas the majority of the sterling gets sent to a refiner for melting? Is that what i'm reading?

Yes, that is what I believe.

I personally have never dealt with refiners, I am going by what I have heard from coin dealers and from what I have read over the years.

I cannot answer your question about sending refiners sterling and having them make you silver bars. I would imagine others on here might know the answer to that question.

Jim

Thanks, maybe i'll pose it on the Precious Metals page tommorrow.

 

[FiresEye]

silver silver silver

 

[quiksilver]

Besides finding a person willing to pay close to spot, I find that a coin show is the best way and price to sell coins. Asking 20 dealers in a half hour usually gets good results fast.