Post-Nuclear Apocalypse Silver Half Dollars?
I came across a lot of scrap Sterling silver recently. It didn't seem like anything special until I noticed something unique. There were two 1964 Kennedy half dollars in the lot. For those who don't know, any dimes, quarters and half dollars made in 1964 or earlier are 90% silver. They're easily recognized.
After removing the coins, the lot was 86 grams of Sterling silver, or about $158 melt value of pure silver.
The refiner takes about a 15% cut, and also subtract shipping, and I'm left with about $126 of pure silver, or about two troy ounces which I'll sell to cover the costs. The whole lot cost $151, so these two half dollars cost me about $25.30.
Your average silver half dollar has about 0.36 troy ounces of pure silver in it. So two half dollars are worth about $44.64, which means I basically got these two half dollars for close to half of spot!
The Ugliest Kennedies Ever
These have to be the ugliest half dollars I've ever seen. When I saw them, I thought for sure they were fake. They look like they came out of a nuclear winter.
You know it's bad when the first thing I do is pull out the Sigma to test if they're real.
Hey, it's real! All right, that's a good sign!
Score! They're crusty and dusty, but they're real!
There really isn't any numismatic value to these, so I put them in a glass dish of water to soak. I have some collector-grade cleaning solution I can use to remove some of the grime and then they'll be off to the silver stash!
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That’s a cool machine, where did you get it?
Thanks! My bullion dealer had a small lot of them come in a few years back. They run about $1000, so I traded in a lot of 90% silver coins for one.
They test various purities of gold and platinum as well. 🙂
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Awesome, personally I'd chose to keep them as well rather than sending them off to be melted down. You given these halves a new life!
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Yeah, I wouldn't want to do it with coins or rounds. Broken items and silverware I'm not so concerned about melting down unless it's a really nice set.
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Yes, the Kennedy half dollars are ugly! 1964-present
The Walking Liberty half dollars are much more beautiful 1916-1947
And what did they do to those half dollars? Bathe them in urine? Maybe some cleaner?
It is interesting that that year, 1964, is the only 90% silver Kennedy half dollars.
The next year, half dollar was dropped to 50%. And 1971 dropped to nothin
Yeah, I have no clue what they did. I'm almost wondering if they were part of some sort of display and maybe the residue on the back is glue?
Yeah, I prefer the Walking Liberty halves as well, but I won't say no to silver under spot! 😁
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Glue is a good bet, especially the dried up crusty stuff they had in the 70s.
Probably this stuff
Never look gift silver in the mouth.
Right? I figure after it soaks I can try some isopropyl before hitting it with the coin cleaning solution.
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Seems like you snagged a pretty good haul there. What was your profit percentage?
Yeah, definitely!
It's too early in the morning for math. !LOL
I think it's around 43% profit once everything is totaled.
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Nice! That isn't too bad at all!
While I have no issues melting/ refining coins. I'd probably not do it to circulation like those. I have a bunch of Franklin mint stuff, and commemorative coins that sell under spot, those will get refined with my sterling.
I agree. The actual coins are worth saving, although some of the private minted rounds can fetch a decent premium depending on the design.
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