Weighing in on weighing silver...

[$ilver$urfer]

Hello All,

I've heard how the US Mint has tolerances for what they deem to be an acceptable weight of coins and if a coin is within that range it is considered ok for circulation. Well, when thinking of silver, a 90% half should weight 12.5 grams and have a silver weight of 11.25 grams. I thought to myself, what if some of my 90%ers actually weighed a little bit more and if I grouped them by weight I might be able to get more for melt than I might normally. Well, to put my theory to work I grabbed a handful of 90%ers I had and started weighing them, a couple weighed in at 12.3 grams , most were 12.5 grams, but I found a bunch that weighed in at 12.6 and 12.7 grams. Surprisingly, one with a hole drilled in it even weighed in at 12.6 grams!!! Not sure I would have enough of the 12.6 and heavier halves to make a real difference, but it might for some of you big timers in here! I know junk silver is usually bought and sold per $1 face value but some of you might have a way to sell it by weight so I thought it wouldn't hurt to at least post the topic!

HH,

$ilver$urfer

 

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[blkcwbyhat]

After seeing the post on the guy selling roll's on feebay.....If you were to weigh EVERY 90 or 40% you had,then sell them by the .02 gram difference,you'd profit by what,a penny?Most dealers,buyer's,use a face value time's silver,not per gram. How do you know the extra weight is silver or copper? I can see weighing a roll to do a rough search,but selling a coin per gram is a bit of a stretch.

 

[$ilver$urfer]

After seeing the post on the guy selling roll's on feebay.....If you were to weigh EVERY 90 or 40% you had,then sell them by the .02 gram difference,you'd profit by what,a penny?Most dealers,buyer's,use a face value time's silver,not per gram. How do you know the extra weight is silver or copper? I can see weighing a roll to do a rough search,but selling a coin per gram is a bit of a stretch.

It is not a .02 gram difference, it is .20, big difference. Much more than a penny, since the coin is supposed to be 90% silver irrespective of weight according to the US Mint, a 12.7 gram half would have 11.43 grams of silver in it as opposed to 11.25 for a 12.5 gram half. As I mentioned in my previous post, which apparently you failed to read thoroughly, if you had a bunch of these, say 100 at 12.7 grams, then you would 'technically' have 18 more grams of silver, or about the equivalent of 101.5 silver halves.

I know they are bought and sold by face value, which I think is stupid because when I have bought from sites online they always send the most worn and rattiest stuff, which is not 'full weight'. Let's be honest here, we are buying silver by the troy ounce so in my estimation, although not 'technically' feasible, I think it is a good idea to buy and sell silver, even 90% junk silver, by weight.

Again, I was just hypothesizing about the theory -- I know full well it would never really happen in the marketplace.

HH,

$ilver$urfer