40% silver

[lucky1777]

Does anyone know a refinery that takes these?

 

[jewelerdave]

Most will take em, Its just how much you get for em. most of them melt them, and because there is so much copper in them it requires special handling, it takes about 3 times the amount of nitric acid to dissolve the same amount of copper as to silver. And too much copper in solution causes the silver to drop out of solution. A good thing when thats what you want to pull the silver, a very bad thing if you dont have everything dissolved. So it takes a while and a lot of resources to undo what was done.

Personally I melt them but usually look to sell them off to "investors" or "conspiracy theorists" for when "things go to hell"
I am still not sure why people believe that preciouses metals will "save them" or what from. I have always felt that if things got that bad to a MAD MAX type situation the last thing on anyones mind would be gold and silver.
But the fact is no matter what happens to a government or in any war...things always stabilizes and rebuild. IF things are going bad, move somewhere where its not LOL.

 

[patpall22]

lucky,

I think that with all the extra copper weight in the coins that after shipping, it won't be worth the hassle. If you have allot of 40's you should try to sell them in a lot here on T-NET in the for sale section. I believe last week or so a member here put up 340 ( I think ) 40%'ers and wanted 2 dollars each for them. The same day
another member posted "check your PM" in his thread. I have also heard a few people here getting around 2 dollars at coin shops. That seems like a fair price considering that each 40% has around the silver content of two pre 64 dimes.

 

[CLZinTX]

Lucky,

Try calling all of your local coin dealers and asking them what they are paying for 40% halves in the quantity you have. You can then sell them to whomever will give you the best price.

Try this link for IL PCGS Authorized Dealers. Remember there are more out there that are not PCGS authorized then there are on this website, and that does not mean they are not good dealers, this just gives you a place to start.

http://www.pcgs.com/dealer/displaybyarea.chtml?state=IL

You can go to this site and see what the full melt value of your coins are on any given day.

http://www.coinflation.com/silver_coin_values.html

Remember the dealer is in business to make money so he will not give you full melt for them cause he has to sell them to someone else and make some profit. Try to find someone who will give you the greatest percentage of melt, 91 to 95% is not unreasonable, but you might find some who will give you more.

If you have a local dealer that will buy them you can take them in and get your money right then and there and do not have to worry about shipping them in and waiting on a check, so take the cost of freight and refining into consideration when you consider selling them to a coin dealer.

Hope this helps,

CLZinTX

 

[Immy]

One thing's always bugged me about dealers/coin shops. They always explain the "less than melt" prices they pay is because they're a business and want to make profit. Well, when they resell them they charge more than melt value, so they're taking a profit at both ends. Double dipping?

I don't get this either: I asked my local coin shop, if I came in with 100 ounces of silver in 40%ers could I trade them straight up for a 100 oz. bar. They said no because there's no profit in it for them. Well, there's no loss either so I don't get it.

 

[jewelerdave]

thats kind of funny Immy, because technically they do make a profit on straight trade. But most coin shops are going to want to make a significant profit. The problem with the 40s is they are a hard sell. As you want to have a single bar...they can move that easier than a bunch of 40s. Or they have to melt them, and there is a loss there.
have you offered trading 100oz of 40s and offering like $50 cash for doing it?
That may be just enough to make them happy and you still get your 100oz bar for less than spot.

But just remember, weather its a 100 oz bar or a sack of coins, if ya hit someone over the head with them the effect will be the same. But you will only need half as many coins to do the job if they are 40s

 

[CLZinTX]

Immy,

You are correct, they do double dip if they buy them from you and sell them to me. What I have heard is that when a coin dealer buys a bag of $1000 face from you, unless he has a customer that wants to buy it, or a good walk-in market for silver, they will immediately call someone like Dillon Gage and lock in a price to re-sell the bag to them.

At that time it is considered a "Deal" between the dealers and the guy ships the bag of $1000 face to Dillon Gage and he gets the agreed upon price regardless of whether or not spot goes up or down. I have not dealt with Dillon Gage, but I imagine they do not pay full spot to the dealers either.

On the other hand they always charge a premium, "The Spread", if they sell coins to the general public, even after having made some money when they bought the coins to begin with.

Im not saying a agree with this, but only that they need to make some money to stay in business.

Here is an example from one coin dealers 24 hour hotline that I feel is too large of a Spread. I called it just now to see what he was offereing.

Hot line as of opening this morning, silver was at $15.76:

40% Buy $3.80 (per dollar) Sell $4.50
90% Buy $10.50 (per dollar) Sell $11.70

At $15.76 actual melt is:

40% $4.49 (per dollar)
90% $11.22 (per dollar)

So he is paying you about 85% of melt which to me is not a good deal to sell at.

Bottom line is you have to shop around and sell them at a price you are comfortable with, so you will not go around beating yourself up over it in the days to come.

CLZinTX

 

[Silver Stripe]

There's 4 coin shops where I live. 2 of them don't want the 40% unless I want to spend them in the stores at face value. One offered ME $1.50 each last time silver was $15.50-15.75. Last one will only pay $1.20. I don't sell mine here where I live LOL. I would try this place ifn I had $1000 face http://www.golddealer.com/bullionpage.html#SILVER BULLION HH Mark

 

[Immy]

Interesting stuff guys, thanks. The shop I use, the biggest one in Vegas, has the following silver quotes as of today's $15.58 closing price:

40% - $3.86 per dollar

90% - $9.66 per dollar

Melt value is:

40% - $4.61 per dollar

90% - $11.27 per dollar


So at about 86% it's a good idea to shop around.


Dave, I thought about offering some cash to make up for what they think is a "no-profit" deal, but I wasn't sure where to start. Bars take up much less room in safety deposit boxes.

 

[jewelerdave]

yeah they do take up quite a bit of room, exactly why I melted mine down, no matter how fat a check is or big a bank account number is it all takes up the same space and fits in a wallet. The cash i got for mine has long since been used to buy and turn over other product, pay bills and invested into other highly profitable things. Maybe in time and if enough people melt them the value may go up on them. but it may take a few generations. I say...lets make em rare!

 

[packerbacker]

jewelerdave, I was wondering how you can actually say one of these silver halves has "become" rare due to melting? You have made this statement before. They didn't really keep track of how many of which years have been melted down so how can you come up with an estimate of how many are left of any particular coin? It's all unknown so who would pay a premium for, what would be, a guess as to how many are left? You could have the last 1968D half dollar on the planet but there wouldn't be any way to prove it. See what I mean?

 

[coolpix9]

It's all a numbers game. The higher silver climbs,the more people sell their hoard. If they are selling 40%ers, we could be actually making a dent in how many are out there. I know a young lady who has pulled a few thousand 40s out of just one state. We don't really know how many people are out there hunting and lurking on this forum. If we could melt just 10% of the 40s that were minted, that would be a large pile of silver. Cheers and Good Hunting, Jim

 

[jewelerdave]

its impossible to know for sure how many have been melted, the only known figure is how many were made.
One has to figure, that since they stopped minting them people have been melting them. Just like regular issue silver coins etc, no one knows.
But every time silver spikes some go in to melt. But some go to horde. As to how many are horded as to how many have been melted as to how many are just in circulation like we pick up is unknown.
I do know its a fact that many have been cut up for jewelery, melted, lost, or sitting in an closet/safe/drawer, no one knows.

If people all the sudden want them and start collecting them and there is a shortage...say you do have the last one left. People would be asking for them, hunting etc, the price would spike and people dont melt them anymore. Look at the 1970 40s, one would be crazy to melt them down as the collectable value is higher. But I have only found 5 of them to the thousands of others.
the most uncommon ones I find are the 65s and 66s. most of my finds are 67 68 and 69, Anyone else get the same thing?

I just know that I am personally responsible for thousands being melted...but they made them by the millions. Figure every day some go away, and no new ones are being made...so in time...guess whats going to happen. it may be 50 years...but they will have some value some day over melt. Anyone is going to do whats profitable.