Back to the original subject I feel the answer is a simple one. The will ultimately end up in the melting pot. This happened to Morgans and US half dollars. I have heard some of the common date halves became the rare ones due to melting.
But weren't the Morgan's and half dollars that were melted only 90% silver and significantly circulated/worn circulating currency? ASE's today are neither circulating currency nor only 90% silver. Why would someone pay a higher premium for ASE's than silver blobs of the same purity and weight, just to have the ASE's melted? Am I missing some piece of information here? .
The 90% that was being melted was all types of quality coins....demand was extremely high so older coins were being indiscriminately melted. Demand was so high it was impossible for dealers to even sort through all the stuff coming in. If demand is high enough whatever is available will hit the melting pot. ASEs will be available just due to their quantities out in the world. Now, I would suspect blobs would go first but ASEs would still be hitting the furnace at a high rate. Even at today's prices many premium coins like Kooks and lunars sadly hit the melting pot. I personally know some guys who sort through refiners items coming in to try and snag the ones with premium value but there is no way they can get them all.
Yeah, I've heard the Perth Mint has melted down some pretty cool stuff. Hopefully they've got guys sifting through & rescuing some of it, too..
I can understand people selling their uncirculated silver Kooks and Lunars at a buy back "bid" price if the spot price just blasted off. But who would scrap for the under spot ask price a gem uncirculated Kook or Lunar in January - August 2015?? Even if that person were to only get a few $ over spot, that would be a high enough percentage over a buy back "bid" price (which is always under spot) to make it worth it to not scrap for melt....right? What conditions could lead someone to dump at below spot melt rather than above spot in 2015? I'm not talking about the mint melting their own coins....that happens regularly with mints. .
People have items that they don't know the value of.....they sell to a person who pays based on what the refiner pays....the buyer sends to the refiner. End of story. Even though the seller and buyer could both get more by selling somewhere else they don't. The seller is unknowledgeable or may need quick cash and the buyer has a business model based on moving volumes to refiners and does not want to delve down into selling individual items.
Thanks for explaining. Obviously, anyone who sells uncirculated semi-numi silver coins for considerably less than what their normal value on the open market might be are quite unknowledgeable. I just assumed there would be very, very, very few of such people who have access to any sugnificant number of semi-numi coins and decided to sell them for melt. Of course, I also have surmised right from the beginning that there may be a tiny fraction of people who sell semi-numis for melt because they are very desperate.....but this can not be a large volume of Kooks and Lunars I would suspect. Based on the knowledge you seem to have, what amount of silver Kooks and Lunars that are in the hands of either the general public, stackers, collectors, or investors (in ounces) would you think ended up in the melting pot in 2014? .
Would it follow that candidates for the melting pot would be milk spotted coins? I see that as my FWS's sale option for example.
Good point...one that I did not think about because there have not been a lot of complaints that I've seen posted in this entire forum about milk spotting on the specific coins mtforpar noted (Kooks and Lunars). It would be hard to imagine (but certainly possible) if some people sold for melt a coin like a 2014 proof 5 oz silver Britannia which had milk spots. But I suppose stranger things have happened. .
"What will happen to the 200 million ASEs minted over the past 5 years?" I wonder how many just get melted down and re-branded into coins/bars and/or silver products?
The thing is many coins get into the hands of the unknowledgeable. You can imagine presents to nieces and nephews being mishandled or people who inherit grandpas collection selling it quickly at melting value to get some cash. The numbers are certainly in the 1000s of ounces of semi numi stuff but to nail it down to Kooks and Lunars would be challenging to estimate.
What will happen to the 200 million ASEs minted over the past 5 years? The trust for my one year old Nephew will sell them, so he can go to college, in 18 years. -bw
Dont sweat it! lol these blanks PM are trying out from RCM will always spot so we may as well get used to it
