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Silver quarters

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drpizza said:
i had someone come in to purchase pizza once with a roll of silver quarters. I even commented "you know these are probably worth more than regular quarters - you didn't take these from your parent's bedroom or something, did you?" "no, my mom is in the car [motions to car] and says they've been sitting around doing nothing, so we may as well spend them." they sat on the edge of the register until he was out the door. I pulled the money from my pocket and exchanged it for the quarters. When i went through them later, i expected early 1960's coins. Instead, 1876 centennial something or other liberty quarters. Worth $35 each at the time. I still have them.
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score!!!
 
IceBergSLiM said:
2) Tea partiers are a large group with modest extra income to buy metals (how did we get so many retards?)
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This is 'murrica.

1306610079240.jpg
 
gorcorps said:
the 15-20% of them that are pre-1982 could net you 3-4 times what you paid in copper scrap.

You have to find somebody willing to pay copper scrap though, because it's an alloy (mostly copper with ~5% zinc after 1962) so it's not a straight trade.
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It is illegal to melt cents (and nickles) in the US, so you'd need to find a very shady scrap dealer that does their own melting.
 
their silver value is worth more than .25

any quarter/nickel/dime pre 1964 you should keep and swap out for a newer one.

In the upcoming zombie apocalypse gold and silver will be the currency of the land.
 
Eli said:
lol, wow.

Silver peaked like a month ago. But it's still very high. I'd say it's as good of a time as ever to sell.

<-- works at a .925 jewelry company
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My sis has 2 jewelry stores and has racked up on "scrap" gold.
Mrs Jones,"Well, I've got these old things I don't wear anymore."
Sis, "I'll take them off your hands for $100 or I would be glad to give you a $200 store credit."
Mrs Jones, "Sweet."
Sis, "I know."

300%+ of wholesale jewelry costs or 35% borrowing from me. I'm the compassionate child in the family. ()🙂
 
Jadow said:
their silver value is worth more than .25

any quarter/nickel/dime pre 1964 you should keep and swap out for a newer one.

In the upcoming zombie apocalypse gold and silver will be the currency of the land.
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Nickels didn't change composition in 1964. they've always been copper/nickel, except for a few years during WWII when they had a bit of silver in them (33% or so I think) since nickel was more valuable for military uses. Don't remember the exact years they had silver (1943-45?) but they look noticeably different from regular nickels.
 
I have a couple sandwich bags of old silver dimes through dollars, but unless I'm getting gold prices for them I don't really see the purpose in selling them.

Funny story. (Not really, but it's all I have.)

My mother flew out to Vegas to visit me back around '99 and when I picked her up she was playing the slots in the airport. The machines kept spitting her quarters out that she was pulling from a paper roll of quarters. I asked her if those were grandpas (He passed away several years earlier, left a LOT of coins). As soon as she said "yes" I told her to stop because those were his silver quarters. Doh! She had a bunch of the rolls in her purse...

/facepalm
 
I just bought an MS-60 (at least) Morgan dollar (1878-S) for $45. When I got home, it turned out I had bought the same dated coin in 1990 for $20. Oh well.
 
911paramedic said:
I have a couple sandwich bags of old silver dimes through dollars, but unless I'm getting gold prices for them I don't really see the purpose in selling them.

Funny story. (Not really, but it's all I have.)

My mother flew out to Vegas to visit me back around '99 and when I picked her up she was playing the slots in the airport. The machines kept spitting her quarters out that she was pulling from a paper roll of quarters. I asked her if those were grandpas (He passed away several years earlier, left a LOT of coins). As soon as she said "yes" I told her to stop because those were his silver quarters. Doh! She had a bunch of the rolls in her purse...

/facepalm
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You would be surprised at how many people have no idea what they have or what they are worth when it comes to silver coins.

From my box of $500 halves I picked up the other day, I got 6 1964 Kennedy coins, one 1969 40% and 2 Walkers. Pretty good box! I am sure the next few will be skunks.
 
When I worked for BK a theiving dopehead kid came in and paid for 7 meals with his grandfather's silver coin collection. I pocketed the cash knowing that someone would come looking for it. Sure enough the grandfather came in and just wanted to make sure the coins didn't go to the bank. I offered to sell them back at face value, but he said "lesson learned" and left.
 
DrPizza said:
I had someone come in to purchase pizza once with a roll of silver quarters. I even commented "you know these are probably worth more than regular quarters - you didn't take these from your parent's bedroom or something, did you?" "No, my Mom is in the car [motions to car] and says they've been sitting around doing nothing, so we may as well spend them." They sat on the edge of the register until he was out the door. I pulled the money from my pocket and exchanged it for the quarters. When I went through them later, I expected early 1960's coins. Instead, 1876 centennial something or other liberty quarters. Worth $35 each at the time. I still have them.
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I had something similar happen to me back in my college days. I worked at Sears in the catalog pickup area. An old lady came in and paid for her order with Mercury dimes... I mentioned to her that they were valuable, but for whatever reason she didn't care. After she left I bought them all from the register.
 
kranky said:
It is illegal to melt cents (and nickles) in the US, so you'd need to find a very shady scrap dealer that does their own melting.
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Not that long ago, the metal in a nickel was worth $7 and for a penny it was over $1.

So they made it illegal to melt them both to prevent current circulating coins from disappearing, which they would have.
 
LTC8K6 said:
Not that long ago, the metal in a nickel was worth $7 and for a penny it was over $1.

So they made it illegal to melt them both to prevent current circulating coins from disappearing, which they would have.
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Umm, no. A pound (16 ounces,453 grams) of nickel is about $8. The all time high for nickel was about $12.50. An American nickel coin weighs about 5 grams which at todays prices translates to .08 each.

A penny weighs 2.5 grams and copper is $3.20 a pound today (all time high was about $4.60). At todays prices, a solid copper penny from pre 83 is worth about .017 cents each.

Of course that doesnt include middlemen, etc., who wont pay you full price because they have to get paid too. Factoring in melting costs which is expensive eats in to your profits so its not like you will get rich doing this. :whiste:
 
kranky said:
It is illegal to melt cents (and nickles) in the US, so you'd need to find a very shady scrap dealer that does their own melting.
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You answered my question before I could ask it. I was wondering about the destruction of US currency. 🙂

Interesting thread. I've only ever found one silver quarter, not a habit of mine to examine my change closely and I wouldn't really know what to look for, but a vendor machine gave it to me in change and then wouldn't take it back.
 
gorcorps said:
They were worth about 2c a year ago and I'm not sure copper has doubled since then. Still... buying bricks of pennies for face value could be a worth while investment because you can find a good chunk of pre-1982 pennies in each brick. Any non-1982 pennies could just be redeposited at the bank for the price you paid for them, and the 15-20% of them that are pre-1982 could net you 3-4 times what you paid in copper scrap.

You have to find somebody willing to pay copper scrap though, because it's an alloy (mostly copper with ~5% zinc after 1962) so it's not a straight trade.
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Pretty sure its a federal offense to destroy US currency by melting it down.
 
Actually, it's only illegal to melt cents and nickels. And that's a fairly recent law. None of the other current coins are worth melting. There's no law against melting older silver coins (1964 and older dimes and quarters, and 1970 and older half dollars).

There's also no law against mutilating coins unless there is an intent to defraud (for example, you can scratch your initials into a coin, but you can't damage one and then try to sell it as a genuine mint error coin. That doesn't fool anyone with experience anyway).
 
sonambulo said:
Any point to owning these?

I've worked as a cashier on the side for years and years and buy these out of the register at face value ($0.25 ea.), with the store owner's permission. Is there any point to hoarding them or should I just sell them all for silver?
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Last I saw they were worth about $3.25 each, based on the silver in them.
 
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