Is Silver Reshaping the Future of U.S. Coin Collecting?
Rising silver prices and increased melting activity could push even the most familiar U.S. silver coins toward scarcity, forcing collectors and dealers to rethink long-held assumptions.
As strange as it may sound, we may be entering a new phase of U.S. coin collecting, a phase when even such commonly collected coins as a 1964 dime or a 1921 Morgan dollar could become expensive and rare.
What these two examples have in common is that both are composed of silver. The spot price of silver has skyrocketed recently. The U.S. Mint and other coiners currently producing coins and medals composed of silver are re-pricing what they are selling. Industrial users of silver are buying bulk amounts of the metal at prices far exceeding its spot price. There are unverified rumors of China stockpiling silver for political reasons.
Refiners are overloaded, meaning that if a coin dealer buys junk silver coins with the intention of melting them, that dealer is likely on a waiting list that could be as long as three months. That’s a long time to wait for your money.
To move silver coinage along, silver coins are being priced below melt when priced at wholesale. There are recent reports of the unthinkable—bulk quantities of Morgan and Peace silver dollars dated between 1878 and 1935 being shipped to refiners to be melted as nothing more than junk silver. Should this continue, even the most commonly encountered silver coins could become scarce.
A completed set of nicely circulated silver Washington quarters could become a rarity. Even such modern issues as Silver American Eagle coins could be impacted. I don’t want to appear to be an alarmist, but when even the most commonly encountered silver coins begin to disappear, collectors may need to rethink their collecting strategies. Likewise, dealers will need to rethink what to stock and what to scrap.
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