This is about the US Silver Eagle Dollar, which is also a silver bullion coin. Supposedly all of them contain the same content of .999% silver and weigh one Troy ounce. To me, this would mean they would all weigh the same. I got bored the other day, so I started weighing some. Imagine my shock when I started weighing some and found variation. I used a grain scale (an RCBS 505). One Troy ounce is 480 grains. What I expected to find when weighing 10 different uncirculated Silver Eagles from various years was none under 480 grains, and a weight variation of about 1% (4.8 gr.) or less What I found was none were under 480 grains (I will give the US Mint that), but weights running as high as 497 grains down to as low as 483 gr. were encountered When my first weighing hit 488 gr. I thought I had a scale calibration issue and much searching for exact known weights followed before continuing the weighing. My conclusion a few days later was the scale was spot on and the weighing of the other coins then continued. This means a weight variation of at least 3%+ is acceptable to the Mint even though they are stamping them all as one ounce. All of the coins I measured had the same width and thickness to within .002 inch. This means the variation is in the silver content. My issue is simply that if there is a 3%+ weight variation (perhaps more with a larger random sampling?), then they can't all be 999% pure silver. I have no doubt they really are silver of greater than Sterling (i.e., 95%), but I suspect some may be closer to 97% than .999% or else they would all weigh the same. Just saying.
Or it is in fact .999 and overweight. The US guarantees it be at least one troy ounce of .999 fine silver. To make sure that is true they add .1-.5 grams to prevent the coin from being underweight. The worst case(or best case to the consumer) is that it is .5 grams overweight. That is less than 1/4th of a dime. It is really very small when you think about it and variations in the planchet may cause this.
Okay. I admit I didn't think of simply being .999% and simply being overweight. Since they are all possibly overweight by at least 1% possibly more, that would mean those with 50 or more coins to trade should weigh them first. There may be an extra ounce in there somewhere.
Not really because the value of them is at least spot +$2.50. It is priced in. Now some people believe they should weigh coins when its value is almost exact to spot for example pre-65 silver.
Please stop saying .999%. That would mean it's less than 1% silver. As far as the weight variations go, here's a thread that discussed it and has links to older threads that discussed it before that: http://www.cointalk.com/t6430/
[h=3] Here is the legal description. Unlike previous circulating coins ( as this 0ne was not intended such) there was no tolerances given, so as long as it weighed at least 31.103 grams, it satisfied the requirements.
Hmm well that may be what the Mint charges, but to me they are just another form of bullion, I have more (maybe even a lot more) than 10 of them, All were bought by me at different times as bullion, not as coins and no, I don't throw in an extra $2.50 when I but them. Regardless of year (or if in a plastic case with funny letters like MS 69), from me you get last night's spot price. No one ever asked me to weigh one before handing it over (probably because they trusted the 1 ounce mark). I may start doing that now that I have found variation. Our economy is doing so well the price I offer is usually accepted from the hungry. Now, when, if I ever sell them, I would possibly seek more.
