"One Man's Trash is Another man's Treasure" : WORST Junk Silver Quarters

(Noob poster here, and apologies to anyone put off by the gendered adage: open to all of course and thanks for contributing!)

This is a somewhat odd data request: Please feel free to post GRAM-WEIGHTS for any 'slicks' or VERY THIN Barbers, Standing Liberties and WORN Washington Quarters (all dates: 1892-1964.) I want to know the weights of the junkiest of your "junk silver" Quarters. For a study, I am running a spreadsheet with dates, mintages, etc. to estimate the TRUE average weight of a $1,000 Face Bag of Quarters. I am trying to calc average annual wear-rate, so most worn' $0.25 coin-weights for are BEST for my purpose. Especially wanted: 1962-1964 'low weights' for Washington Quarters!

Here's what I've started so far (Version 1), accurate weights will help me refined this. Thanks!

1) 1967: A GSA 'Mint bag' $1,000 Face-Bag SILVER Quarters in the 1960s (detailed by Henry Merton in The Big Silver Melt, pp.67-9) was exclusively Washingtons at full or near full weight: 803.5 - 804 Troy Ounces (720.- 723.5 Pure Ag)
Reasonably, we may presume ~52% of those coins would be '1960s' ; also, ~68% of the bag would be uncirculated ; and at least 99% Full Weight (+6.25 grams) plus many 6.3 grams, etc. ... in other words, a true & full weight 4,000 Silver Quarter Mint bag.

2) 1970: A bag of circulated SILVER Quarters in 1970 (same Wash mintages, for consistency) but with average circulation-wear calc'd by year should weigh (by my independent calculation) ~793-799 Troy Oz., or 713.5 -716. Oz. Pure Ag.
That calculation IS what a typical/normal/expected/average $1k FB should have weighed around 1969. Not coincidentally, Kiplinger's Personal Finance presented this very factoid "about 715 ounces" in a May 1970 article: "Silver Coins: sell 'em or save 'em?" (I have no idea why everyone keeps repeating that weight 40 years later and for bags now chock full of underweight heavily-circulated "junk silver" coins!)

3) A bag of MIXED SILVER Quarters (Washington & SLQs mintages adjusted, consistently) with now 'well-worn' coins might weigh (again, by my own calculation) as little as ~725 - 730 Troy Oz. Gross, or just ~ 654 Oz. Pure Ag.
Another website tests weight variance in real bags, comes to a similar conclusion and explains the '6 - 8 % Loss' : see http://about.ag/silverbags.htm

Is it unclear, how & why bags are lighter? The repeatedly sorted FB is now almost entirely lowest-grade coins. It's no accident: dealers long ago removed the best-condition uncircs and most full-weights. In addition to now worn 1960s Silver, the lighter 'salted' bags additionally include up to ~5.5% "slicks." Slicks are very thin Barbers and undatable SLQs, 8% - 17% underweight. Especially bothersome, SLQs may be diminished to as little ~ 5.7 grams ... "Junk Silver," indeed. You are looking at a shortage of nearly 2 kilos of pure Ag on that purchase, worst case scenario.

I have no idea how low 'the typical bag' of $1k Junk Silver now goes, but just as the eBay peddlers of well-worn Washington Quarters ("6.25 grams") are <ahem> not accurate, LCS should present true weights for every FB bag they sell.

To understand the vendor's premium on "junk silver" might be close to 12%. Look at The WSJ Spot Price for $1 FBs ( http://online.wsj.com/mdc/public/page/2_3023-cashprices.html ) In this egregious example, buying uncirculated .999 Ag coins might be cheaper ... but hey, you get what you pay for! If you want to buy junk Ag by weight and you're happy with a readily-known, honestly explained premium from your LCS that's fine for all parties too.

Thanks for posting your most worn (90/10 Ag-Cu) Quarter dates & weights, very much appreciated!

 

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Yup, Gresham's Law works in this domain as well. I know I always look to buy by weight for well-worn silver, FV for lightly-worn, and look to sell the opposite -- if someone's paying based on FV, the slicks are the first I'll sell.

I started to do a little study here, but I never followed through. I still hope to collect and post more data... sometime...

 

I have been haunting a local dealers junque silver for a while, I pull what looks the best, and then check my date/mm sets and make upgrades, the lower ones go in tubes, so the ones I am checking out here are quarters that are lower than the ones that are in the collection.

34 Barber quarters, 193.7 grams 5.7 gram average
26 SLQ's, 155.3 grams 5.97 gram average
40 Washington quarters, 248.4 grams 6.21 gram average

 

Yes, jeffB: found your earlier post (it brought me here, actually) and it was very useful THANKS! The about.ag folks focused on bag weights, likewise. Both broadly consistent, fwiw.

I see (elsewhere) that disappointed small-lot junk silver buyers are getting it too (rolls of 40 "Ag" coins w/ 4 clads, superlight rolls, etc.) And don't get me started on the eBay scammers yet!

Another kind of winnowing occurs by your strategy and Chip's (below): you're culling 'better worns,' leaving the very worst. And leftovers are what's eventually salting the dealers' lightest FBs nowadays, LOL.

IDEA:
To calc total bag weight without a LARGER scale I imagine it’s possible to estimate within 3 Troy Ounces with weighed and dated inputs of 20 Quarters (0.5% the total 4,000) drawn from the bottom of a FB. I’ve a hunch that might be possible to within 5 Troy Ounces with just 10 Quarters. By the numbers. And there could be a downloadable app - if that saves you the ‘loss’ of ~50-60 oz. pure Ag (absent from a +$27k purchase) it’s no cheap trifle either! 'Trust but verify' is just common-sense today.

Thanks for the #s , Chip!

 

Chip-
If not too much trouble, could you post 'dates & weights' for the 40 Washingtons and any legible SLQs?
Thanks again, much appreciated!

 

http://www.cointalk.com/t144944/

 

Can always use the online calculator to figure what UNC coins of the various series would weigh.

http://www.coinflation.com/coins/silver_calc.php

Washington - 723 troy oz


Viable?? Calculator indicates the same weight for Barber and SLQ's as well.

 

Coincast-
That thread hints at some of the issues I'm looking at - I'll raise a few openly. Different coins wear at slightly different rates - not only for field and depth but perhaps variations in planchet purity. (For example, the 'overweight' character of 1963/4 Roosevelt Dimes.) And then, in different years, certain coins may have circulated more (or less) based on various (possibly unknowable) factors: scarcity of Dimes, fewer transaction with Dimes, etc. All that influences bag-weight, to be sure. I am surprised no one in that thread simplified the 'quantifiable sample' issue, since the buying & selling of $1K face bags is common.

For example, in a $1k FB of 90/10 Ag Quarters (4,000)if only SLQs &Washingtons there should be by mintage:

1964D: ~705
1964: ~560
1963D: ~135
1963: ~70
1962D: ~125
1962: ~35
....
1930: ~5
1929: ~10
1927: ~10
(and so on)

No. Excluding any pitted, clipped, gouged, etc. rejects, there are more than enough coins of the first five dates (above) to establish true tolerance and quintile cohorts by weight. 1:Mint/Uncirculated 2: Very Light Wear (XF-AU grades), 3: Worn("F"), 4: Very Worn("VG" -"G"), 5: Heavily Worn (Junk). Quintiles would conclusively show the strong correlation of weight with wear and not only for heavily worn coins. Loss is loss, wear is wear ... so a typical coin will experience abrasion of use (time it circulates) even if imperceptible to weak eyes. Statistically speaking, many "Uncirculated" were circulated (just 'better preserved' by chance) and - on closer inspection and more rigorous standards, those so-calleds should & will weigh towards the lower end of the First Quintile. They've lost mass in transit. In ~100 or so of the same date/best condition coins, this should become obvious, on the scale. What's more, before a panel of experts the ten or so lowest weight and so-called "Uncircs" would probably also become the most debatable on condition - in other words, not really "Uncirculated". (I wonder "How many fake 1964D's are out there?") As a myriad of bogus eBay sellers demonstrate, "Uncirculated" is often just a make-believe label, the hustler's pecuniary bias.

'Light coins' are worn, to belabor the obvious. And no one should be fleeced by any marketing con: lower grade US 20[SUP]th[/SUP] Ag coins are numismatically poor "investment." Just throw 'em on the scale.

Comparing median and average quintile coin-weights for respective years should reveal wear-rates for the Quintiles by Year. Or, the difference between two Years' Median 'Worn' is effectively a 12 Month wear-rate for that mintage. I estimate it's ~ -0.11895% and -0.14539% per year for Washington Quarters, Light to Heavy-Wear: that's the multiplier(s) I'm trying to refine. It may sounds silly per coin, but for a purported "715 ounce bag" that's REALLY only ~665 oz., aggregate loss from annual wear takes an enormous toll. Yet every vendor still claims his is a "715 ounce Face-Bag," hmmm.... Buyer beware.

More importantly to my point, coin-wear IS quantifiable, particularly after accurately factoring true tolerance in real samples of the same-same. It just wants for data.

 

I also just found & reviewed another thread on the subject The "Real" Weight of Junk Silver

Is there any substantiation for the claim that "mint tolerance is 1%"? Where does that misunderstanding come from? In fact, US Mint tolerance for 90/10 Ag coinage was 1.5 grains troy per 412.5 grains by Law: that's 0.363636%. In other words, "Mint tolerance" for a Washington Quarter 96.45 grains troy (6.24986 grams) was +/- 0.35073 grains; a new Quarter weighed as high as 96.801 or as low as 96.1 grains.

An uncirculated "Mint tolerant" Washington Quarter should weigh 6.227 - 6.273 grams. (Less or more is outside of Mint tolerance, in fact.)
An uncirculated "Mint tolerant" Mercury Dime should weigh 2.491 - 2.509 grams, no less no more. (otoh, I believe many overweight Roosevelts were issued in 1963-4; I don't know why.)

A lingering question I have is what was the Mint tolerance for circulated 90/10 coinage, to be withdrawn? At what point, percentage-wise, did an underweight coin get yanked and melted? Thanks!


On Mint tolerance, see "An International coin, the Stella, Goloid metric coinage, and metric gold coinage." 3/3/1879 45th Congress, 3rd Sess. House of Representatives Report #136