Going through an Old bank bag of junk silver

[casman]

While sorting through and separating out the coins I noticed the pile of 1938 Washingtons was getting bigger and they all looked much better, then way better than anything else I'd seen in awhile including the bag of junk silver.  Not sure why they all got thrown in there.  Quick pic with the cell phone.   Thoughts appreciated.

[thebeav]

WOW, beautiful Washington !

Yea, odd that that would be in a 90 bag .......

[Conder101]

Probably an older bag put together back in the late 70's early 80's.  Someone had a bunch of AUish 1938 quarters worth say $6 to $8 each.  Then silver jumped and now they will melt at $12, 30 to 50% more than you had been able to get when you could find someone that needed one.  And the silver buyer will take the all at once.  Off they went and they got dumped into a 90% bag.  It could be really amazing what went into bags back then.  And often buyers had no time to even look the stuff over.  Melt had outpaced coin values so much that things which today we would think are uncomprendable were common place.  I knew one dealer that sent 300 bags of MS 1883 O dollars to the smelter.  Sounds crazy, but before the silver boom they were 15 each and how long would it take to move 300,000 of them?  But the smelter was paying close to $50 each and he'd take them all.  So it was $4.5 million over a long period, or a check for $15 million tomorrow.  Bye bye dollars.

[thebeav]

Yes Conder, that first boom was something else. It was wild, the stuff that got melted. I couldn't bear the thought of melting a '16 D or a 42/41. Let alone a D or S Washington.  I would be on the floor, on my knees, checking dates until into the late hours. It didn't seem to matter that I didn't get dinner until 1 AM.

Of course, I was a little younger then too......

[kidrootbeer]

I worked for a Trader, and it was amazing to see all the antiques Dealers who sold us their scrap, pounding away on Sterling Silver Tea and Coffee sets, Mirrors, etc. They'd go into co-ops and such, with scales, and buy everything that was under melt

[DWLange]

I remember the 1980 gold/silver rush as a time when all coin shops ceased normal business and didn't even put out their trays of numismatic coins. It was all about long lines of people cashing in anything they had that was of precious metal. The only upside for me was that I was allowed to look through the day's take of silver coins, and I found some nice pieces that were destined for the smelter. The best buy I made was an 1877-CC half dollar in choice AU condition. It had a few fresh nicks from the coin counting machine, but these were offset by wonderful old pewter toning, with gold and blue peripheries. Even at its bloated bullion value, the price was right.

[erwindoc]

Nice quarter!