selling silver and gold

The wife and I are considering cashing in our common date silver coins and our gold rings to put into a fund for another detector.
We have about 7-8 ounces of silver coins, most of them are Rosies and Mercs. A few Barbers but they are well worn. Many of them I estimate to be very fine and a few are extremely fine. No key dates, of course.
Is it worth the trouble of selling them individually based on their condition or should I just take them to a dealer? I calculated the silver worth of a dime today to be about $2.00 and common date mercs for example to be about $3.00 a piece. What should I expect to get from a dealer?

We only have a few gold rings but with the gold price the way it is now, I thought it would be a good time to cash them in. All are 10-14 Karat. A few are plated. I'm wondering if it is worth the trouble heating up the plated ones to separate the gold. Has anyone done that?

Any advice is appreciated!

I've always had good, fast results with Midwest Refinery. Take the jewels out of the rings beforehand.

Dealers will usually give you 40% of the value of the coin at most :ticked: So it is worth more as scrap silver. I don't know if anyone is paying 20x face though. You have to account for smelting loss and remember, thay are only 90% silver by weight. You get nothing for the copper portion lol Gold plated is not worth trying to recover unless you have a huge amount. Gold filled is a bit better but not much. I've heard good things about Midwest Refineries too. But I have never used them, because I can't find any gold lol Not that I actually look for it though 8/

i seen gold and silver selling over what dealers pay on e-bay.go check it out and you will see.a dealer offered me $50 for a roll of common date mercs.they are going way above that on e-bay.just another avenue for you to explore.
good luck!

I've had good luck with ARA (http://www.aragold.com/). They offered the best deal on gold at the time that I could fine (98% of melt). When I found my first ring, I took it to one of those sell gold here places, and they offered me about 40% :mad:. Unless you know an honest one, don't waste your time.

I agree with HEAVYMETALNUT. Ebay is the way to go. You will get more that way. I would put the most worn into a big lot and the one's that are in best condition seperatly to get top dollar.

As far as the rings. On plated, it's not worth the time...at all. The layer of gold is so thin. It's one of the amazing charateristics of gold. I could take an ouce of gold and beat it so thin as to cover an entire football field...well just about. What matters on plated is the base metal, hopefully silver plated in gold. You again may end up better selling the rings on ebay as scrap. Just state 3 14kt rings at ....grams I've been coming across people who have no clue about metal commodities tell me they are buying the heck out of gold right now...mostly because that';s what some guy on the conservative talk radio is telling them they should do, then again, I've also heard that same talk radio telling people to stock up on seeds for their own gardens for when the food collapses. lol Right now, a lot of our market is driven by fear.

If all else fails I wil pay you 80% of spot price for junk silver, that includes coins and jewelry, just send me a PM or e-mail. Silver is going crazy out there and the spot price today is $24.90 oz. I pay around $70.00 for a roll of mercs or rosie's.

$27.90/oz as of 9:50 pm 8Nov10. 0.07234 oz in a silver dime equals ~ $2 a piece. Prices for commodities likely to keep on going up!! Question for all of you out there - who's willing to pay me $2 for each of my silver dimes:huh:

As for the gold I know always use Midwest Refineries, they pay spot price for the day minus 5 percent, I have used them four times and have been happy with the service every time.

Midwest refineries is where all the gold buyers in this area bring their gold, I've heard many good reports about them.

Midwest is the only place i send in gold and silver,best service going....

For a number of years I went with Midwest. But then I found ARA and they give more bux for the goods. So I deal with them now, steve in so az

I've found that the best place to sell junk silver is .... on eBay. When selling, you will get pretty close to the spot price and often more. Lots of people buy there because there is no commission.

Everyone seems to trust the midwest guys - how do you know you are getting the best deal? I guess you all weigh your gold by kt to get totals: ie 1.2oz 10k, .5oz 14k etc. Has anyone gotten 1.ripped off or 2. short changed by them. Just seems a bit risky to just - - mail stuff in. I would like to unload some older unused gold, school rings 10k and bits and pieces of other jewelry. Thanks for your advise - TS

I believe your question was more about timing than where to sell if you decide to. Jewelry is a total different subject than coins. I've sold both. If your gonna get ripped of it will be with the jewelry. With coins there are a few things you should consider before you sell for melt. You mentioned having some good coins, 'barbers' even though worn and some coins in 'fine to ex/fine' condition. I would say that some of those coins are worth about what the melt rate is today (around $24/oz). I would not consider selling silver coin for melt until it hit $35. At that point a dime would be in the $2,90/3.00 each range. Keep in mind that billions of US silver coinage has been reduced to melt over the years. In 1979/80 the Hunt brothers attempted to corner the silver market buying up all the silver contracts in the commodities market. Silver hit $50 briefly. There where tons of coins sold for melt during that period. I turned in 6 coffee cans full myself. So many of those common date coins have a little more value since there's not so many around. Keep in mind that since silver has moved into the double digit range these last few years there has been a constant flow of coinage to melt. Don't be in to much of a hurry to get rid of good quality coins that could hold a higher collectors value than melt value in the future. Now, if silver gets up to the 40 or 50 dollar range again. You need to re-evalute. You have to ask yourself if that extra fine rosey dime will ever be worth $5. But you can bet one thing. If silver ever gets back to 50 bucks, you'll have people setting up in motel rooms everywhere buying your stuff. Don't laugh at those motel guys. Competition is tough, they pay cash, and they tend to pay top rates. Here's the key. If you don't know what your coin is worth at the melt rate you don't know if your getting a fair price. There are silver coin melt rate charts available. I believe the Whites metal detector home page has one. I like the one at Ask.com/coins. At the bottom of that page there is a coin melt link for silver and gold. Very complete and their coin page info is nicely done including errors and key dates. Hope this helps.

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Originally Posted by foiler link=topic=2722.msg139606#msg139606 date=1366915565

I believe your question was more about timing than where to sell if you decide to. Jewelry is a total different subject than coins. I've sold both. If your gonna get ripped of it will be with the jewelry. With coins there are a few things you should consider before you sell for melt. You mentioned having some good coins, 'barbers' even though worn and some coins in 'fine to ex/fine' condition. I would say that some of those coins are worth about what the melt rate is today (around $24/oz). I would not consider selling silver coin for melt until it hit $35. At that point a dime would be in the $2,90/3.00 each range. Keep in mind that billions of US silver coinage has been reduced to melt over the years. In 1979/80 the Hunt brothers attempted to corner the silver market buying up all the silver contracts in the commodities market. Silver hit $50 briefly. There where tons of coins sold for melt during that period. I turned in 6 coffee cans full myself. So many of those common date coins have a little more value since there's not so many around. Keep in mind that since silver has moved into the double digit range these last few years there has been a constant flow of coinage to melt. Don't be in to much of a hurry to get rid of good quality coins that could hold a higher collectors value than melt value in the future. Now, if silver gets up to the 40 or 50 dollar range again. You need to re-evalute. You have to ask yourself if that extra fine rosey dime will ever be worth $5. But you can bet one thing. If silver ever gets back to 50 bucks, you'll have people setting up in motel rooms everywhere buying your stuff. Don't laugh at those motel guys. Competition is tough, they pay cash, and they tend to pay top rates. Here's the key. If you don't know what your coin is worth at the melt rate you don't know if your getting a fair price. There are silver coin melt rate charts available. I believe the Whites metal detector home page has one. I like the one at Ask.com/coins. At the bottom of that page there is a coin melt link for silver and gold. Very complete and their coin page info is nicely done including errors and key dates. Hope this helps.

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This seems like very sound advice and useful information!

Welcome to the forum, foiler, and thanks for the informative post!

|:cheering: Excellent advice! I haven't sold any of my own silver/gold (not much of the latter lol ) but will take this into account when I do.

Welcome Foiler! :groovy:

There's some discussion about Midwest Refineries paying 95% of melt for your scrap gold.
I'm not sure if most know how to calculate melt to see if they truly are getting a good deal. All gold dealers buy scrap gold by the pennyweight DWT. A DWT is 1/20 of an ounce or 1.5552 grams.
Weigh your gold by karat setting your scale on dwt. Multiply weight by gold price by the following karat factors.
10K=.0208
14K=.0291
18K=.0375

The result is melt value. Next multiply that by .95 and this is what Midwest Refineries should be paying you, if they do pay 95% of melt.
Example- Gold price is $1490. You have 1 DWT of 10K. 1490x.0208x1=$30.99. X.95=$29.44. Midwest should pay you $29.44.

Please anyone who has sold to MW, please verify your invoice and let us know if it's true or if it's a manipulation of statistics and hype.

I stole this from another site--works well

http://dendritics.com/metal-calc/