What a dealer will actually pay
Melt value is the metal. What you are offered is melt minus a spread, and the size of that spread is the whole game. Here is how the trade works, so you walk in knowing roughly what the number should be.
Do this before you talk to anyone
- 01Sort by date. 1964 and earlier is 90% silver. 1965 to 1970 is 40%. 1971 onward is not silver at all and is worth fifty cents. If the dates are worn off, the edge tells you.
- 02Count the silver, by type. You need two numbers: how many 90% coins and how many 40% coins. Everything else is small talk.
- 03Work out the melt. The calculator will do it at today's price. Write the number down. It is the only figure that gives you a position in the conversation.
- 04Set the rare ones aside. A handful of dates are worth several times their metal, and a dealer buying a bag at a melt-based price is not going to point them out to you.
The dates not to sell for melt
Most silver halves are bullion, and selling them by weight is the right thing to do. A few are not. If any of these are in the pile, take them out and have them looked at separately before the rest goes anywhere.
- 1921, 1921-D and 1921-S Walking Liberty. The scarcest dates of the series in any condition.
- 1938-D Walking Liberty. The scarcest regular issue after the 1921s.
- 1916 and 1917 with the mint mark on the obverse. The mark moved to the reverse during 1917, and the obverse versions are the scarcer ones.
- Anything genuinely uncirculated. A coin with full original lustre and no wear is a collector coin whatever its date, and grading may be worth it.
- 1970-D and 1987. Both were issued only in mint sets, so an ordinary-looking modern coin can be scarcer than it appears.
Where the money goes
Bullion dealers buy 90% silver at a published spread against spot, usually a few percent under melt on a decent quantity, and they will take a whole bag without blinking. This is the right route for bulk common material and the prices are competitive because they are public.
Local coin shops are faster and involve no shipping, but the spread is wider because their costs are higher and there is no published price to hold them to. Worth it for convenience on a small lot; expensive on a large one.
Auction is for genuinely rare or high-grade coins only. The fees make no sense on bullion, and the good houses will tell you so themselves.
The two ways sellers lose money
- Selling a rarity by weight. This is the expensive one. A key date sold in a bag at melt can cost more than everything else in the bag put together.
- Cleaning the coins first. It feels helpful and it is not. Cleaning removes original surface and can take most of the collector value off a coin permanently. Silver value is unaffected by dirt, so there is no upside at all.
What we do
Nothing automated. We have no dealer arrangements in place, we do not sell enquiries on, and there is no panel of buyers waiting behind this form. If you write to us a person reads it and tells you what we would do in your position, including when the answer is that you do not need us.