# Lifestyles & Discussion > Personal Prosperity >  Silver coin wear / Silver coin value.

## 123tim

Does anyone know how much "average wear" deducts from the silver melt value of a coin?
For example say that a silver Kennedy half dollar has a melt value of $6.30.   Would this be worth much less if it has "Average wear"? 


 To take this question even further - Would a coin that has the dates worn completely off have a drastically reduced silver content?

I'm not good at this sort of thing... and I really appreciate all of the advice that I get.

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## Shinerxx

Most dealers will sell you junk silver under spot price.  For example Tulving right now has junk silver at 15 cents under spot price.  I personally would never purchase junk silver for wealth preservation purposes at spot price when it can be found easily under spot.  

If your Kenndy half dollar is only 40% silver this is sometimes concidered less appealing to buyers and they may offer even more under spot.

In conclusion, the reason for the price below spot is because of the circulated wear to the coin and actual loss of mass.

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## bander87

> Does anyone know how much "average wear" deducts from the silver melt value of a coin?
> For example say that a silver Kennedy half dollar has a melt value of $6.30.   Would this be worth much less if it has "Average wear"? 
> 
> 
>  To take this question even further - Would a coin that has the dates worn completely off have a drastically reduced silver content?
> 
> I'm not good at this sort of thing... and I really appreciate all of the advice that I get.


The melt value is based on no wear at all I'm pretty sure. If you can't read the date on the coin, as much as 10% of it's weight may have been lost.

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## ARealConservative

> The melt value is based on no wear at all I'm pretty sure. If you can't read the date on the coin, as much as 10% of it's weight may have been lost.


It is hard to fathom losing 10% of a coins weight unless it underwent cleaning and polishing.  Dates wear off because they are raised and receive the brunt of the friction over the life of a coin.  I suppose softer metals like gold would lead to a 10% loss, but the 90% coins are made of pretty tough material.

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## bander87

> It is hard to fathom losing 10% of a coins weight unless it underwent cleaning and polishing.  Dates wear off because they are raised and receive the brunt of the friction over the life of a coin.  I suppose softer metals like gold would lead to a 10% loss, but the 90% coins are made of pretty tough material.


On second thought, it could be closer to 5%. I was weighing silver quarters the other day and probably don't remember the numbers too clearly.

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## acptulsa

> The melt value is based on no wear at all I'm pretty sure. If you can't read the date on the coin, as much as 10% of it's weight may have been lost.


I believe this is correct, but it is an educated guess on my part.  10% is, I'm sure, a little high.  Your Kennedy half may or may not be as little as forty percent silver.  If it isn't the first year of production (1964) it could be.  You'll see the telltale band of copper 'sandwiched' in between the shiny surfaces (though it won't be as dark as the band of copper inside a modern quarter).  Any Kennedy half except the 1964 will either be sandwiched on a copper or partly copper core or will be a special "mint" or "proof" coin.

The only U.S. coin I can think of off the top of my head that can get its date worn off without losing a fairly significant proportion of its weight is the Indian Head (Buffalo) Nickel.  For some reason, those had the date mounted high (on the gentleman's shoulder) instead of in a recess.

Wear has a major influence on numismatic value (value to coin collectors) just as an old car's condition has major influence on old car collectors.  However, most coins have to have major, major wear to come out a significantly different weight.  And as far as precious metals are concerned, weight and purity are the _only_ considerations.

Collectors generally pay the full precious metals price plus a premium for rarity and/or desirability.  These premiums, as all prices on the luxury goods market, vary widely according to people's ability to buy.  So, all will go down in a bad economy.  This makes collector coins a bad buy from the precious metals standpoint, as there are market forces that keep their prices up even when they should be low.  This also makes them fairly stable in value--even if no one wants precious metals right now as they'd rather get their money in stocks, they may want that shining proof quarter from the year their eldest son was born.

It is interesting to see how these two markets--one a collectors' market, the other serious finance--intersect.

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## amy31416

If anyone has a link to what these typical coins are supposed to weigh, I have abalance on hand and can weigh some of the coins I have and give you some real-life numbers.

I have pre-1964 quarters, dimes, half-dollars, dollars (oldest is an 1878 dollar.) Tell me whatcha wanna know and I'll give ya some numbers.

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## Trance Dance Master

> If anyone has a link to what these typical coins are supposed to weigh, I have abalance on hand and can weigh some of the coins I have and give you some real-life numbers.
> 
> I have pre-1964 quarters, dimes, half-dollars, dollars (oldest is an 1878 dollar.) Tell me whatcha wanna know and I'll give ya some numbers.


This is in troy ounces, and only 90% of the weight of these coins is silver.  Dealers buy and sell large face value bags by weight.

http://www.goldprice.org/buy-silver/...ver-coins.html

As stated previously, avoiding all 1965 or later coins to make things easier.

Here is the silver content of various earlier silver coins:
Silver dollars contain 0.77344 Troy oz. silver content
Half dollars contain 0.36169 Troy oz silver content
Quarters contain 0.18084 Troy oz silver content
Dimes contain 0.0723 Troy oz silver content

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## amy31416

Well, all I can tell you, if I can find what the coins are supposed to weigh (preferably in grams) is how much the coins I have (considered "junk" silver for the most part) weigh now and what percentage of the mass is gone, along with the approximate condition.

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## Dustancostine

www.coinflation.com

Click on the coin you want to know the weight of in grams.

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## amy31416

Thanks for the link. A coin of mine that is in the worst shape of most all of them, an 1895 Barber Quarter that you can still just barely read the date on, barely a hint of ridges at all:

Should weigh: 6.250g
Weighs: 5.382g
% lost=13.9%

Since it was 90% Ag in the first place, the original Ag content was 5.625g, and using the % lost, it now contains approximately 4.843g Ag.

Check my math if you will, I just did it up quick-like.

Value: Silver is worth $18.16/oz, and 1oz=28.35g, 4.843g Ag is worth $3.10.

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## Dustancostine

So instead of being worth $3.28 in silver at $18.11/ozt it is worth $2.83 (with no collector value added).

--Dustan

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## amy31416

Check my numbers above, I got a different value. I'll recheck as well. 

Ahh, I see--you have a different value for silver/oz. Perhaps the site I used is wrong?  http://www.coinflation.com/silver_coin_values.html

Nope, that's not it either.

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## 123tim

Thanks to everyone for all of the excellent advice and information.  

It seems like smaller coins are more likely to wear (my opinion) than larger coins.  Am I all washed up about this?

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## amy31416

> Thanks to everyone for all of the excellent advice and information.  
> 
> It seems like smaller coins are more likely to wear (my opinion) than larger coins.  Am I all washed up about this?


The quarters and dimes I have are more worn than the dollars and half-dollars. It could be that they simply saw more "action" than the larger coins, not sure.

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## 123tim

> The quarters and dimes I have are more worn than the dollars and half-dollars. It could be that they simply saw more "action" than the larger coins, not sure.


Thank you Amy.  I'll bet that you're right about this.  I think that my "opinion" above was actually told to me by someone else in this forum....I had forgotten that they had said this.  


Could I ask a question?  At the current price of silver today the melt value of an uncirculated mercury dime is $1.31...........how much would a "average worn" coin be worth at this price?

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## acptulsa

> Thank you Amy.  I'll bet that you're right about this.  I think that my "opinion" above was actually told to me by someone else in this forum....I had forgotten that they had said this.  
> 
> 
> Could I ask a question?  At the current price of silver today the melt value of an uncirculated mercury dime is $1.31...........how much would a "average worn" coin be worth at this price?


That one's huge.  Coins are marked with date and mint.  Some years this mint or that produces a lot, other years no.

Supply and demand.  A nearly smooth coin can have a little more than face value if it's rare enough, most if they're pristine enough, and all manner of variation in between.

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## amy31416

I think there may be something askew with how I calculate the value, maybe one of the numismatics guys could tell me. Here's what I do to calculate the value of the silver:

actual wt of coin (g) x 0.90 (%Ag) = g Ag x $18.16 (value Ag)/28.35 (conversion factor oz-g)

I took five dimes, weighed them, took the average weight and ran it through my equation above and came up with an average value of $1.44. 

I think I'm missing something in how I calculate the value of the silver contained, it should be worth less than the pristine Mercury dime, however, when I calculated the value of some recent scrap silver that I bought using that equation, it was almost exactly what I paid.

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## RCA

.715 is the constant for junk silver (halves, quarters and dimes 1964 or older which contain 90% silver).

Assuming your coins have average wear on them, here is the market value formula:

Silver Spot Value x .715 x Face Value

For example, let's say you have 6 1964 Kennedy halves. Here's how you find the market value:

18.07 (today's silver spot) x .715 x 3 = 38.76015

Never pay more for 90% silver coins than this formula yields.

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## 123tim

> .715 is the constant for junk silver (halves, quarters and dimes 1964 or older which contain 90% silver).
> 
> Assuming your coins have average wear on them, here is the market value formula:
> 
> Silver Spot Value x .715 x Face Value
> 
> For example, let's say you have 6 1964 Kennedy halves. Here's how you find the market value:
> 
> 18.07 (today's silver spot) x .715 x 3 = 38.76015
> ...


Thank you RCA.  This is exactly what I was looking for. (Thank you to everyone - I appreciate all of the replies.)

I think that I'm not understanding something though....could you tell me where the 3 comes from in your calculation?  Is this the value of the Kennedy halves?  I was using the silver melt value calculator (http://www.coinflation.com/coins/sil...&Submit=Submit ) from coinflation and this gives me a value of $6.57 for a Kennedy half-dollar.  Am I doing something wrong?

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## amy31416

> .715 is the constant for junk silver (halves, quarters and dimes 1964 or older which contain 90% silver).
> 
> Assuming your coins have average wear on them, here is the market value formula:
> 
> Silver Spot Value x .715 x Face Value
> 
> For example, let's say you have 6 1964 Kennedy halves. Here's how you find the market value:
> 
> 18.07 (today's silver spot) x .715 x 3 = 38.76015
> ...


Thank you! I knew something was off about my made-up equation.

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## RCA

> Thank you RCA.  This is exactly what I was looking for. (Thank you to everyone - I appreciate all of the replies.)
> 
> I think that I'm not understanding something though....could you tell me where the 3 comes from in your calculation?  Is this the value of the Kennedy halves?  I was using the silver melt value calculator (http://www.coinflation.com/coins/sil...&Submit=Submit ) from coinflation and this gives me a value of $6.57 for a Kennedy half-dollar.  Am I doing something wrong?


3= $3 face value of 6 half dollars

Also, the melt value calculator assumes the coin is uncirculated (no wear), hence it's slightly higher market value. If you buy circulated 90% silver (which I recommend because it's usually cheaper), they will have a certain amount of wear to them, hence the .715 constant.

Furthermore, there are 723 troy ounces of silver in $1,000 of 90% silver. The constant for unused 90% silver coins is .723.

Since most 90% silver coins have been circulated, there are roughly 715 troy ounces (left) in $1,000 worth of 90% junk silver. The .715 is an accepted market average for typical coin wear.

I hope this clears things up, at least in regards to 90% silver.

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## 123tim

> 3= $3 face value of 6 half dollars
> 
> Also, the melt value calculator assumes the coin is uncirculated (no wear), hence it's slightly higher market value. If you buy circulated 90% silver (which I recommend because it's usually cheaper), they will have a certain amount of wear to them, hence the .715 constant.
> 
> Furthermore, there are 723 troy ounces of silver in $1,000 of 90% silver. The constant for unused 90% silver coins is .723.
> 
> Since most 90% silver coins have been circulated, there are roughly 715 troy ounces (left) in $1,000 worth of 90% junk silver. The .715 is an accepted market average for typical coin wear.
> 
> I hope this clears things up, at least in regards to 90% silver.



Wow. I'm stupid.

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## RCA

> I think there may be something askew with how I calculate the value, maybe one of the numismatics guys could tell me. Here's what I do to calculate the value of the silver:
> 
> actual wt of coin (g) x 0.90 (%Ag) = g Ag x $18.16 (value Ag)/28.35 (conversion factor oz-g)
> 
> I took five dimes, weighed them, took the average weight and ran it through my equation above and came up with an average value of $1.44. 
> 
> I think I'm missing something in how I calculate the value of the silver contained, it should be worth less than the pristine Mercury dime, however, when I calculated the value of some recent scrap silver that I bought using that equation, it was almost exactly what I paid.


What you have wrong is that you weren't converting to troy ounces:

1 troy ounce = 31.1034768 grams

The U.S. mints coins using troy ounces.

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## RCA

> Wow. I'm stupid.


No you're not, you're buying silver!

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## amy31416

> What you have wrong is that you weren't converting to troy ounces:
> 
> 1 troy ounce = 31.1034768 grams
> 
> The U.S. mints coins using troy ounces.


Yeah, that wasn't in the physical chem book I had on hand to do the conversion. 

I recalled hearing about troy ounces, just never really used it before. I figured someone would correct me. Thanks for your explanations. 

Upon recalculating the value of the average wear dimes, they are around $1.18 apiece.

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## RCA

> Yeah, that wasn't in the physical chem book I had on hand to do the conversion. 
> 
> I recalled hearing about troy ounces, just never really used it before. I figured someone would correct me. Thanks for your explanations.


The government wants to keep troy ounces a secret!

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## amy31416

> The government wants to keep troy ounces a secret!


Hahahaha--naw, I'm just a newb to this stuff. I heard of it, I sorta knew, I was being a bit lazy.

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## 123tim

> No you're not, you're buying silver!


One good thing about this...Inflation will overcome my ignorance.

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