Apathy from coin community towards melting silver coins

I was reading up on the great silver melts of the '60s and of 1980 and noticed a lot of apathy on this forum. I went to this link:

https://www.cointalk.com/threads/data-on-1980-silver-melt.113706/

and many of the posters seemed to be OK with melting silver coins and said if silver prices went high enough, they would melt their coins. I do not feel this way. To me, every silver coin is a treasure that should be preserved, despite condition. I wouldn't melt any of my coins even if silver was $5000 an ounce. The apathy towards these coins is disturbing and troubling to me. There are estimates that 65% of all silver coins minted between 1916 and 1964 were melted between 1966 and 1969. There are also estimates that only 17% of all Morgan and peace dollars (not including the vaporware 1964 peace dollar) are extant. Folks, they're not making any more 1900 Morgans or 1960 silver dimes. There are still silver coins such as the ASE and silver proofs being minted, but there will never be another 1950 Franklin minted and once they're gone, they're gone forever. I've been lucky enough to find some silver in circulation, including nearly 40 silver dimes. Every one of these coins will be preserved for as long as I'm alive and hopefully long after I'm gone, although many of them are in poor condition and considered "junk silver" and aren't worth more than melt.

What do you think?

 

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Who does the actual melting? Seems like it wouldn't need to be done until the silver needs to be repurposed (e.g. transformed from a coin to silverware). Can you get a higher premium (realize a greater profit) if it is in pure form vs. in 90% form as a coin?

 

If you value silver coins as coins then buy them up and keep them. The more there are that are melted, the more the numismatic value will go up on extant coins. It doesn't bother me if people want to melt their coins.

 

I don't know why people would melt them either. Like you said, junk silver is very liquid. I've also heard that the statistics on the supposed number of coins that have been melted are greatly exaggerated.

 

Their coin their choice

 

More physical melting has always been done of stuff like silverware sets, etc. but coins have been melted. I remember a dealer in the 70's having like 180,000 BU O mint morgans they had to cash flow so they got sold to a smelter.

I know the feeling OP, but I just don't stress it much. As long as I am not the one physically selling to a smelter there isn't much I can do about it. I would say, though, that due to the large melts junk silver is actually starting to bring a premium nowadays, so I believe the era of physically melting coins is near its end unless prices skyrocket. If silver skyrocketed to $100 an ounce I would feel no compunction against selling junk silver to a dealer. If he sells to a dealer, that is his issue.

 

It's not clear to me why there is a need to spend money to convert silver from coin form to some other form of bullion (ingots, bars, whatever).

 

A lot of silver is used industrially. You need to melt down coins to use it in industry. Alternately, when the price spikes up people try to get more bars made that meet the COMEX specs so they can put them on the exchange and trade with them. You cannot deposit junk silver to trade on the exchange with.

 

I think, you're either full of baloney or only own 1 silver coin because at $5,000 an ounce, I would simply not hesitate to melt them all.

I mean, REALLY! Exactly what significance would a 1964-D Quarter or Roosevelt Dime have in regard to history? There are literally hundreds of thousand if not millions of nice uncirculated examples laying around in some safe or store.

Is it apathy or perhaps fiscal responsibility?

 

Honestly I think you're a bit on the crazy side. I mean I haven't had any of my coins go directly to the smelter as far as I know, but if silver goes up in price, say over $50 an ounce you're gonna be troubled, that's all I gotta say. ~Cheers!

 

I wouldn't melt them, but I would definitely sell them.

 

In 100 years, how many Morgans will be left in lower than MS 65 condition?

The thought of melting down silver coins literally makes me sick to my stomach...just like when they crash a classic car in a movie.

 

Nope, I'm 100% serious. Some things are more important than money to me...ironically it is money we're talking about in this instance. And I have hundreds of silver coins. As far as regard to history...every coin has a story to tell. As I've said numerous times on this forum...I collect for fun, not for monetary gain. If silver went to $5K an ounce, most of these those uncirculated dimes and quarters would get melted, making them rare.

 

You say crazy, I say passionate.

 

I sure wouldn't send any of my coins to the smelter regardless of the price of silver, be it $50 or 5000. But then, I have no "junk" silver either. I don't collect to make a profit, now or ever. Sometimes the history a piece represents is beyond monetary value to me. Is that crazy? Maybe to some, but not to people who collect because they enjoy the collecting.

 

I'd be all for melting any and all presidential coins in less then high grade and damaged holed or otherwise problem low grade common coins. As to walkers slq barbers etc I find them still pretty in g-vg and a bit better then melt so no on those

 

...You know they usually swap out the classic car and, anymore, they use CG a lot more often than anything physical being banged-up. The beauty shots of classic cars in movies are what you see before careful editing and Hollywood skill that blends the "stunt double" into the myth of the film you are wrapped up in. Similar to how "no animals were hurt during the filming of this movie" the same goes for the cars provided to the movie industry.

FWIW, I would sell at far less than $5000/oz. There are so many other things to enjoy with the benefit the coins would provide us from that payout! and so many other non-silver coins to collect if the vast majority of them were melted for the silver. Even if only a marginal amount of silver coins survived that only a few mega-billionaires could afford to possess them, we could still enjoy them like the rarities we can only behold in national museum collections.

Another thing to ease your mind about, despite how many ARE being melted regularly, is to think of how much silver is really out there, still underground and not being actively mined, coming from production of other ore. If the demand is there, there's plenty of resources to go to for vast volumes of it without sacrificing all the coins you're thinking about. With silver at $5000 an ounce they'll reopen the silver mines that are shuttered and scrape the mines clean!