Using “Junk” Silver In Your Survival Strategy
Oct 11th, 2011 | By Andrew | Category: Financial, Precious Metals, Top Headline | Print This Article
Silver and gold are well-known choices for building up a safety net in times of economic crisis. However, one concern that many people have is the usefulness of gold coins or silver bars with high values. After all, you’re not really going to want to use an ounce of gold to pay for a few loaves of bread. You want something smaller and easier to use as a unit of trade, like junk silver.
Junk silver is a catchall term that doesn’t actually refer to “junk” in the traditional sense. This isn’t silver scrap or broken necklaces. Instead, junk silver is the term used to describe silver coins that have been circulated, stripping them of any value as collectible items. With no numismatic or collectible premium on the coins, they have value only in terms of their precious metal content.
Compared to collectible coins or rare coins, junk silver is easy to find and very affordable, notes U.S. Secure Coins CEO Jason Whitney. Junk silver can be bought through major coin dealers in bulk bags, or at coin shows, swap meets, and garage sales on a coin-by-coin basis. You may even find it in your pocket change or in coin jars that have been filled by multiple generations. Like other precious metal coins, it is measured in troy ounces, and you would need any combination of 90 percent silver coins with a face value of $1.40 to equal one troy ounce, states Whitney.
To use junk silver effectively in your wealth building and safety net strategies, you need to familiarize yourself with the major coins that make up the junk silver family. This includes dollars, half dollars, quarters, dimes, and nickels that were once common currency in the United States before the coinage was replaced with new coins made from less valuable metals. The list below includes each U.S. minted junk silver coin with its years of production and total silver content:
Dollars
- Morgan (1878–1921): 90 percent silver
- Peace (1921–1928 & 1934–1935): 90 percent silver
Half-Dollars
- Liberty Head “Barber” (1892–1915): 90 percent silver
- Walking Liberty (1916–1947): 90 percent silver
- Franklin (1948–1963): 90 percent silver
- Kennedy (1964): 90 percent silver
- Kennedy (1965–1970): 40 percent silver
Quarters
- Liberty Head “Barber” (1892–1916): 90 percent silver
- Standing Liberty (1916–1930): 90 percent silver
- Washington (1932, 1934–1964): 90 percent silver
Dimes
- Liberty Head “Barber” (1892–1916): 90 percent silver
- Winged Liberty Head “Mercury” (1916–1945): 90 percent silver
- Roosevelt (1946–1964): 90 percent silver
Nickels
- Jefferson “Wartime” (1942 (partial)-1945): 35 percent silver
Remember, pricing for junk silver is tied to the metal weight and silver content level and should not include any collectible premium. Many of these coins are indeed quite old, but that doesn’t make them valuable as antiques since they were widely circulated and heavily used in many cases.
Holding it in your hand, you will notice that junk silver is often smooth from years of pocket use and may be discolored around the edges. This is fine, as it doesn’t diminish the metal value of the coins, but it certainly doesn’t entitle any dealer to charge extra for the coins simply because they are old! Most of these coins are available as uncirculated collectibles as well, so only graded uncirculated or collectible versions should command a price premium, and this is important to keep in mind as you build a junk silver collection.
In terms of how much junk silver to have on hand, consider your goals and overall financial crisis survival plan. Junk silver appreciates and depreciates with the spot price of silver (currently around $40), so its utility as a medium of exchange does vary. However, at all times it is a recognized and easily liquidated form of holding tangible wealth, with a value high enough to use for daily exchanges but not so high that you would need special security for the coins or be unable to trade them for basic essentials.
As a final note, remember to keep your junk silver separate from your regular spending money. Junk silver coins are still recognized as legal tender in the United States, so your junk silver half-dollars, quarters, dimes, and nickels will be accepted as change without a second glance. Educate your family about silver content differences and store your junk silver away from shared coin dishes to ensure you have this highly useful coinage ready to go if the financial crisis worsens or the U.S. paper currency system collapses.
©2013 Off The Grid News
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If you were to buy a bag of junk silver would it be a bag of all mixed types (dollar, half-dollars, quarters, etc)? Would it just be random what you got? Are the dollars or half-dollars more rare than quarters and dimes? I can only imagine the mints coined more quarters and dimes than half-dollars and dollars. Eventhough they are not valued more for their age and have no “collectible” value are they more desirable just for their rarity?
Thanks, just trying to learn.
As a rule, no. Junk silver is any coin which is in circulated condition. The rarity of a certain minting is negated by the obvious signs of wear. When you calculate the difference between junk silver (i.e. silver value only) and potential “collectible” junk silver, its usually so slight a difference as to not make it worth the effort. The good news is that from a silver standpoint, they are perfectly minted in that two quarters has exactly the same amount of silver as one half dollar piece, or five dimes. So if the fiat money system collapses, you can still make change assuming both you and whoever you’re trading with both have silver coins.
I recommend also storing nickels, as they are valued above their face value at this time. Once they change the composition of nickels (next year sometime, last I checked) you are almost guaranteed the metal value will rise. Even if it doesn’t, it’s still worth 5 cents, so in the absolute worst case, you break even. If you also want to store away copper pennies (1981 and earlier) I do so as well, but I don’t make a big production out of it, it’s a lot of work for far less gain than nickels. The biggest problem with pennies is sorting the copper out of the zinc while all nickels at this time have the same metallic content, you can buy rolls of nickels and store them without sorting.
Very important, if you feel your other preps are lacking don’t waste money on silver. Get your food, water, and other supplies squared away first. Silver is nice to have, but you can’t eat it. I don’t expect people to be willing to trade anything for silver until some sort of equilibrium is reached.
Excellent source of information on coins is: http://www.coinflation.com
You state that $1.40 in 90% silver coins equals one Troy oz.
Well,a Morgan or Peace dollar contains MORE silver then 2 50c pieces ,
or 10 dimes,or 4 quarters
For example;
2- 90% halves have a silver content of.7234oz while a dollar has a content of .7734oz
Agree, there are many exceptions to my comment, but in my experience buying junk silver it’s usually limited to 50-cent pieces or smaller with a mid-30s mint date at the earliest. I also don’t recommend for somebody to buy a lot of silver coin if it is for the sole purpose of prepping. Most of the people I know, myself included, are spending of our disposable income on the three B’s. Beans, bullets, and band-aids. Silver is only for what you have left over. I have some silver dimes and quarters for trading, and some silver halves for (hopefully) giving my family a head start when things begin to recover. I don’t expect silver to be the “go to” method of trade until things begin to stabilize. You can’t eat it, shoot it, or use it to create energy. I expect that an offer of ammo, medical supplies, food, etc. would be far more likely to be accepted in trade than some disks of metal, regardless of their content. Having said that, it doesn’t hurt to have some, you may be in a situation where you need to easily transport value, and silver is the best way to do that if and when the dollar collapses.
I used the word unfair bescuae I had to randomly stumble across the information that the collectibles were retiring. I would have thought this would be something that would appear in one of those little messages on your profile (which I notice has appeared now one day before they are being stopped). It is not the retirement of the collectibles in itself that I was deeming unfair.Four days before my post, Fission had asked the very same question about exactly which collectibles were being retired and did not get any response, which I thought was very poor and that was why I was feeling miffed.I did not realise you had to read the blog to find out about these things, and I’m sure 99% of the other cheez users do not realise it either.
I use which I beevlie is more common. I’ve never heard of private mint rounds referred to that way before.