I Paid $2.33 Per Ounce for Silver, Last Week

[Devil Dog]

I am going to throw you kids a bone. Several of the doom and gloom economic posts have mentioned silver as an inflation hedge. I agree that the US economy is headed for a correction and I agree that silver is a great investment.

On February 12 I paid $6.50 for 2.79 ounces of silver. You can do the same thing.

Here is how:

1. Buy boxes ($500 each, 50 rolls of 20) of half dollars from a friendly bank. Last week I bought 4 boxes for $2000. Usually I do 6 boxes.

2. Sort through all of them looking for silver. A 1964 or older half is 90% silver. A 1965 through 1970 half is 40% silver. I cut a point at one end of the roll and tear the roll open, then I edge search. It is not necessary to look at dates unless something catches your eye. A silver half is whiter that a clad. Some darken but they look different than a clad.

3. Keep the silver halves and replace them with clad. Put two boxes into a coin bag, to make $1000. Repeat.

4. Deposit the clad halves at a different bank.

5. Repeat.

Net result last week: I found 13 silver coins and replaced them with 13 clad coins ($6.50). Those 13 coins were 1 Walking Liberty, 3 1964 Kennedy, and 9 '65-'70 Kennedy. That is 4 90% silver and 9 40% silver for a total of 2.79 ounces of silver for which I paid $6.50, 13 clad halves. $2.33 per ounce. This is a very good week, not typical.


You may have to search for a while before you find a bank which will sell you boxes of halves. You may have to search for a while before you find the second bank which will accept bags of halves as deposits. "But I went to 5 banks and none of them would order halves for me". f**k you. If you can't get banks to do these things for you then that is why you are broke, that is why you will never get out of your country, and that is why you can't get women. Stop being a p***y. Go to 20 more banks. Offer to open an account there if they will do this for you.

[aozora13]

Do you have advice for people who possibly want to get silver from auction websites like eBay?

[Rock]

I am going to throw you kids a bone. Several of the doom and gloom economic posts have mentioned silver as an inflation hedge. I agree that the US economy is headed for a correction and I agree that silver is a great investment.

On February 12 I paid $6.50 for 2.79 ounces of silver. You can do the same thing.

Here is how:

1. Buy boxes ($500 each, 50 rolls of 20) of half dollars from a friendly bank. Last week I bought 4 boxes for $2000. Usually I do 6 boxes.

2. Sort through all of them looking for silver. A 1964 or older half is 90% silver. A 1965 through 1970 half is 40% silver. I cut a point at one end of the roll and tear the roll open, then I edge search. It is not necessary to look at dates unless something catches your eye. A silver half is whiter that a clad. Some darken but they look different than a clad.

3. Keep the silver halves and replace them with clad. Put two boxes into a coin bag, to make $1000. Repeat.

4. Deposit the clad halves at a different bank.

5. Repeat.

Net result last week: I found 13 silver coins and replaced them with 13 clad coins ($6.50). Those 13 coins were 1 Walking Liberty, 3 1964 Kennedy, and 9 '65-'70 Kennedy. That is 4 90% silver and 9 40% silver for a total of 2.79 ounces of silver for which I paid $6.50, 13 clad halves. $2.33 per ounce. This is a very good week, not typical.


You may have to search for a while before you find a bank which will sell you boxes of halves. You may have to search for a while before you find the second bank which will accept bags of halves as deposits. "But I went to 5 banks and none of them would order halves for me". f**k you. If you can't get banks to do these things for you then that is why you are broke, that is why you will never get out of your country, and that is why you can't get women. Stop being a p***y. Go to 20 more banks. Offer to open an account there if they will do this for you.

OK but that was a good bit of work u did to obtain a few coins with silver content totaling around $156 at current market. Moreover, most of the coins u found were the more diluted ones. Do coin collectors pay at least what the metal value is for such coins? Cus u must know, it's dangerously (serious fed offense) illegal to melt them down and separate out the valuable metals plus the process itself would be costly.

[zboy1]

I recommend you guys take a look at Goldmoney.com or Bullionvault.com

http://www.goldmoney.com/
http://www.bullionvault.com/

I think they're the best way to go to buy and store physical gold and silver.

[Rock]

I recommend you guys take a look at Goldmoney.com

http://www.goldmoney.com/


I think it's the best way to buy and store physical gold and silver.

Devil Dog is talking about a possible arbitrage opportunity in silver with older half dollars. But the sites u posted links to are just about buying physical metals at market price and storing them. Any dope can do that.

[Devil Dog]

It is not illegal to melt the silver coins. Research it.

I gave the breakdown of 90% and 40% which I found. What is your point?

I can sell the coins for melt value all day long through Craigslist.

This is a hobby for me. I enjoy it. I drive past both of my banks 5 times per week so it doesn't cost me any gas money. Each year my profit is about the price of a round trip ticket to Manila, and it costs me about... nothing.

[Rock]

It is not illegal to melt the silver coins. Research it.

I gave the breakdown of 90% and 40% which I found. What is your point?

I can sell the coins for melt value all day long through Craigslist.

This is a hobby for me. I enjoy it. I drive past both of my banks 5 times per week so it doesn't cost me any gas money. Each year my profit is about the price of a round trip ticket to Manila, and it costs me about... nothing.

OK, I probably misinterpreted this then if it is technically legal:

Section 331 of Title 18 of the United States code provides criminal penalties for anyone who fraudulently alters, defaces, mutilates impairs, diminishes, falsifies, scales, or lightens any of the coins coined at the Mints of the United States. This statute means that you may be violating the law if you change the appearance of the coin and fraudulently represent it to be other than the altered coin that it is. As a matter of policy, the Mint does not promote coloring, plating or altering U.S. coinage: however, there are no sanctions against such activity absent fraudulent intent.

So assuming it's legal, how much does it cost to melt down those coins (if u have a lot of them collected up) and extract the silver? And do coin collector market prices for such coins normally at least reflect the value of metals in the coin?

[Rock]

It is not illegal to melt the silver coins. Research it.

I gave the breakdown of 90% and 40% which I found. What is your point?

I can sell the coins for melt value all day long through Craigslist.

This is a hobby for me. I enjoy it. I drive past both of my banks 5 times per week so it doesn't cost me any gas money. Each year my profit is about the price of a round trip ticket to Manila, and it costs me about... nothing.

OK then, it sounds like a nice hobby which makes u some spare cash. Surprised u r posting it here as older silver dollars are fairly uncommon (as all older US coins are not very commonly seen in circulation). So if word gets around, bank employees and others may start hoarding the older coins. Well, Winston's site isn't that big yet so maybe not.

Anymore interesting ideas up yr sleeve u care to share?

[Devil Dog]

Rock, there is no need to melt them down. They can be sold as is or held as an investment in silver. IMO they are a great way to hold silver because there are basically no counterfeits and therefore no need for further authentication. If one believes that silver coins are useful after economic upheaval then these are a smaller denomination than Silver American Eagles so will be useful for smaller purchases.

What I am referring to here is no secret. You would be surprised at how many people do it. Some tellers know, some don't. The tellers at my bank hold silver coins and sell them directly to me at face value. That's the power of being nice to people. I am mentioning this with the thought that someone with a tight financial situation may want to make some extra money for a plane ticket.



Aozora13, I have watched silver on ebay and have come to the conclusion that it is not worth the hassle. When I get the urge to buy more I buy either SAE's or 90% silver us coins on APMEX. Check your local Craigslist and see if anyone is offering to buy coins or coin collections. If nobody is doing that then you could possibly get some great deals that way.

[momopi]

Wouldn't the half dollar coins have collector values that exceeds the face value and silver content value?

[Tsar]

Great post. It seems most people do focus on the dimes and quarters. It makes logical sense that half dollars would have greater odds.

The silver coins should have collector value. Keeping historical coinage and bullion from the mints is a better option than privately minted bars. Bars are directly tied to the price of silver and command less premiums. Bars have little or no numismatic value.

Collector coins always exceed face value and silver content. The only exception to this is if the coin is badly damaged then you would only get silver content.

[Devil Dog]

Wouldn't the half dollar coins have collector values that exceeds the face value and silver content value?

About 98% of the silver-containing halves which you will find are Kennedys, with no numismatic value. I have found Walking Liberty and Franklin halves, both of which have a small numismatic premium on the common dates, maybe. What you have to remember is that silver has gone way up in price, so the value of most silver coins is the silver value.

[Array9]

Great advice DD. Like you, I have been putting in work over the last 3 or 4 months but looking for mostly pre-1965 Wahington quarters. I have been going to Car washes and Laundromats with coin machines getting up to $80 worth of quarters at a time but coming up empty. I work up the street from a few coin machines so I hit them up a few times a week. Even if I don't get any silver quarters, I can still hoard my coins and save them for a rainy day. It is not that easy to spend $500 to $1000 worth of coins.

Business owners are getting wise though. I think they are going through the coin bags and plucking out the coins with silver content. I will give DD's advice a try.

[Maker55]

Silver American Eagle 1 ounce coins are excellent to have.

[Billy]

by the way gold is getting down. what´s going on?