7 ms·

Chances are, he was indeed jerking you around. Nearly every one of these traveling road show style buyers pay very very very very little for coins. They have no

by nlh 8mo ago

Chances are, he was indeed jerking you around. Nearly every one of these traveling road show style buyers pay very very very very little for coins. They have no reputation to uphold and are the literal definition of “fly by night” - and by the time you realize how little they paid you, they’re gone. Source: Am full-time professional coin dealer (who is NOT fly by night!) and have to deal with the repercussions of people getting hosed by these roadshows all the time :(

culi 8mo ago
tbh, I never knew the value of coins was tied to the worth of the metal itself Do these coins get smelted down or something?
- Borrible 8mo ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gresham%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gresham%27s_law
- carlosjobim 8mo ago
  Of course a coin can never be worth less than the metal it contains, when you ponder it logically.
  - dredmorbius 8mo ago
    Sure it can. The face value of a coin may be driven down, based on the exchange value of the currency itself. A coin with a nominal value of 10 but, say, a specie value of 11, is literally worth more melted down than in exchange. This is the dynamic of the Law of Oresme, Copernicus, and Gresham (usually referenced simply as "Gresham's Law"). "The Law of Oresme, Copernicus and Gresham", Thomas Willing Balch Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 47, No. 188 (Jan. - Apr., 1908), pp. 18-29 <https://www.jstor.org/stable/983793 https://www.jstor.org/stable/983793> More generally, when a product's exchange value differs from its production or use value, paradoxical results occur. Gresham's Law, Lakoff's "Market for Lemons", arguably the Jevons Paradox, the phenomena of wine and audio kit pricing divorced from any defensible consumer capacity at discrimination, and enshittification all seem to fit this with reasonable amounts of shoehorning. Also my own "tragedy of the minimum viable user".
    - carlosjobim 8mo ago
      > A coin with a nominal value of 10 but, say, a specie value of 11, is literally worth more melted down than in exchange. And that means people will buy and sell it for the specie value. The specie value is the value. Bullion coins like silver can be worth exactly what the metal is worth, or more. Never less than what the metal is worth. Just because a gold philharmonic coin might be minted with a €100 nominal value, doesn't mean that it is worth that. If you think so, I'll gladly buy all your gold coins for their nominal value.
      - swores 8mo ago
        I believe that you two are not disagreeing in logic, just misunderstanding each others intended meanings. When you said "a coin can never be worth less than the metal it contains", I think you meant "no matter what number is on the coin, its value is always equal to or greater than the value of the metal"; but dredmorbius misinterpreted your comment thinking you meant "the number on the coin must always be a higher value than the metal would be worth if it wasn't shaped like a coin". AKA when carlosjobin wrote "be worth" you meant "value to sell", but dredmorbius thought you meant "value written on it". I might be wrong, maybe it's me misunderstanding one or both of you - in which case please correct me - but I'm fairly sure you're both correctly thinking the same thing while incorrectly thinking the other person isn't.
        dredmorbius 8mo ago
        "Value" one of those horribly conflated terms of economics. For starters there are the relatively well-known conflicts between production cost value, use value, and exchange (market) value. The discussion here adds another element: the distinction of notional currency value vs. commodity value of underlying specie or substrate. The absolute nature of carlosjobim's claim makes it fairly trivially falsifiable, however. Since nominal value is a value, if the face value of a coin is lower than its specie value, its use as currency meets his absurdity condition, "Of course a coin can never be worth less than the metal it contains...", but that remains its legal tender face value. As money, that is, an exchange token socially recognised as having a universal value, the coin is exchanged below its commodity value. As a commodity, that is, metal (or other material) specie, the same item may have a different and higher value, but in this case it's not one which is universally accepted within a given market, but rather is dependent on the specific local market supply and demand of that specie. The coin-as-commodity is also subject to differential valuation based on characteristics --- assayed purity, weight, etc. --- which must be assessed on an individual basis for each coin. In practice, where specie coin was used it virtually always traded at a premium above the commodity value, known by the term seiniorage, which I interpret as the trust value imbued by the currency issuer. My (unorthodox) view is that seigniorage exists in all monies, and is efectively the total basis for value of fiat systems such as paper or credit-based financial systems. The value of such currencies is a market vote on the trust in the issuing entity (and/or the lack of viable or accessible alternatives). But again, coin-as-money has a value equal to its notional face value. That the face value may differ from its commodity value can of course occur. My argument is that this makes the exchange one of commodity trade rather than financial trade, and that ascribing commodity value to coin or face value is a misdirection. Some years back looking into what money is, I realised that the names for virtually all currencies can be traced to either weight (pound, peso, dinar, penny, shekel, kopek, livre, baht, etc.) or division (dime, quarter, cent); or quality (dollar, crown, royal, franc, renminbi), sometimes appears as a signifier of value, e.g., the florin, yuan, or yen. I'd classify toponymic names (e.g., afghani) as referencing quality. There are the odd exception, notably Bolivar, the Venezuelan currency named for Simón Bolívar, though that's arguably a quality signifier.
- nlh 8mo ago
  A very excellent question and totally reasonable thing not to know (congrats on being one of today's lucky 10,000!) I'm speaking from the perspective of US coins because that's what I specialize in but this generally applies to coins all over the world as well: Prior to (and including) 1964, US 10c, 25c, 50c, (and when they were made, $1) coins were made of 90% silver. We made A LOT of these, so in terms of outright rarity, most are not rare. Today they're referred to as "junk silver" because in terms of collectibility, they're junk, but the 90% silver content means there's some inherent precious metal value (as of this moment on Jan 30, 2026, they have ~approximately~ 60x their face value in silver content, eg $6, $15, $30, and $60 in silver respectively.) So that's their basal value that fluctuates with the silver market. But the next layer is actual rarity / collectibility -- if a given coin is desirable enough that it surpasses its metal content, you get a different set of values. Now to your actual question: Do they get smelted/melted down? The answer is...sometimes. They trade somewhat like financial instruments, based on the assumption that you could melt them down (and there's a cost to doing so), so that's how people value the various silver coins. In reality, there's usually enough demand from people who want to hold physical silver in various forms that they don't actually need to be melted down. There's obviously a lot more to it, but that's the 5c version ;)
  - tylervigen 8mo ago
    Great explanation, but your reference to the "todays 10,000" xkcd made me think of this: https://xkcd.com/2501/ https://xkcd.com/2501/
  - vel0city 8mo ago
    > that's the 5c version Is that 5¢ copper or zinc?
  - adastra22 8mo ago
    Is that more or less than the spot price? I would have assumed that they trade higher, though maybe the non collectibles trade are only a little bit higher.
    - nlh 8mo ago
- wakawaka28 8mo ago
  Collectible coins usually get melted as a last resort, if they stay on the shelf forever. The value of the metal is still in the coin though. Think about it: you could buy a very common coin with the same metal, or a slightly rare one. Which costs more? Now take the rare one and put a huge dent in it. Is it worth less than the metal content then?
pseudohadamard 8mo ago
They're incredibly sleazy scumbags. They buy silver coins at bullion-value or below, which is the lowest grade you can get for a coin, making a small profit on everything they buy and massive profits on the ones that are actually worth something as coins rather than bullion. And it's typically elderly people they rip off, who are thrilled to get the price of a cup of coffee for their 1884S Morgan dollar. Never, ever deal with these predators.
- nlh 8mo ago
  amen!

by nlh 8mo ago

culi 8mo ago

tbh, I never knew the value of coins was tied to the worth of the metal itself Do these coins get smelted down or something?

Borrible 8mo ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gresham%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gresham%27s_law
carlosjobim 8mo ago
Of course a coin can never be worth less than the metal it contains, when you ponder it logically.
- dredmorbius 8mo ago
  Sure it can. The face value of a coin may be driven down, based on the exchange value of the currency itself. A coin with a nominal value of 10 but, say, a specie value of 11, is literally worth more melted down than in exchange. This is the dynamic of the Law of Oresme, Copernicus, and Gresham (usually referenced simply as "Gresham's Law"). "The Law of Oresme, Copernicus and Gresham", Thomas Willing Balch Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 47, No. 188 (Jan. - Apr., 1908), pp. 18-29 <https://www.jstor.org/stable/983793 https://www.jstor.org/stable/983793> More generally, when a product's exchange value differs from its production or use value, paradoxical results occur. Gresham's Law, Lakoff's "Market for Lemons", arguably the Jevons Paradox, the phenomena of wine and audio kit pricing divorced from any defensible consumer capacity at discrimination, and enshittification all seem to fit this with reasonable amounts of shoehorning. Also my own "tragedy of the minimum viable user".
  - carlosjobim 8mo ago
    > A coin with a nominal value of 10 but, say, a specie value of 11, is literally worth more melted down than in exchange. And that means people will buy and sell it for the specie value. The specie value is the value. Bullion coins like silver can be worth exactly what the metal is worth, or more. Never less than what the metal is worth. Just because a gold philharmonic coin might be minted with a €100 nominal value, doesn't mean that it is worth that. If you think so, I'll gladly buy all your gold coins for their nominal value.
    - swores 8mo ago
      I believe that you two are not disagreeing in logic, just misunderstanding each others intended meanings. When you said "a coin can never be worth less than the metal it contains", I think you meant "no matter what number is on the coin, its value is always equal to or greater than the value of the metal"; but dredmorbius misinterpreted your comment thinking you meant "the number on the coin must always be a higher value than the metal would be worth if it wasn't shaped like a coin". AKA when carlosjobin wrote "be worth" you meant "value to sell", but dredmorbius thought you meant "value written on it". I might be wrong, maybe it's me misunderstanding one or both of you - in which case please correct me - but I'm fairly sure you're both correctly thinking the same thing while incorrectly thinking the other person isn't.
      - dredmorbius 8mo ago
        "Value" one of those horribly conflated terms of economics. For starters there are the relatively well-known conflicts between production cost value, use value, and exchange (market) value. The discussion here adds another element: the distinction of notional currency value vs. commodity value of underlying specie or substrate. The absolute nature of carlosjobim's claim makes it fairly trivially falsifiable, however. Since nominal value is a value, if the face value of a coin is lower than its specie value, its use as currency meets his absurdity condition, "Of course a coin can never be worth less than the metal it contains...", but that remains its legal tender face value. As money, that is, an exchange token socially recognised as having a universal value, the coin is exchanged below its commodity value. As a commodity, that is, metal (or other material) specie, the same item may have a different and higher value, but in this case it's not one which is universally accepted within a given market, but rather is dependent on the specific local market supply and demand of that specie. The coin-as-commodity is also subject to differential valuation based on characteristics --- assayed purity, weight, etc. --- which must be assessed on an individual basis for each coin. In practice, where specie coin was used it virtually always traded at a premium above the commodity value, known by the term seiniorage, which I interpret as the trust value imbued by the currency issuer. My (unorthodox) view is that seigniorage exists in all monies, and is efectively the total basis for value of fiat systems such as paper or credit-based financial systems. The value of such currencies is a market vote on the trust in the issuing entity (and/or the lack of viable or accessible alternatives). But again, coin-as-money has a value equal to its notional face value. That the face value may differ from its commodity value can of course occur. My argument is that this makes the exchange one of commodity trade rather than financial trade, and that ascribing commodity value to coin or face value is a misdirection. Some years back looking into what money is, I realised that the names for virtually all currencies can be traced to either weight (pound, peso, dinar, penny, shekel, kopek, livre, baht, etc.) or division (dime, quarter, cent); or quality (dollar, crown, royal, franc, renminbi), sometimes appears as a signifier of value, e.g., the florin, yuan, or yen. I'd classify toponymic names (e.g., afghani) as referencing quality. There are the odd exception, notably Bolivar, the Venezuelan currency named for Simón Bolívar, though that's arguably a quality signifier.
nlh 8mo ago
A very excellent question and totally reasonable thing not to know (congrats on being one of today's lucky 10,000!) I'm speaking from the perspective of US coins because that's what I specialize in but this generally applies to coins all over the world as well: Prior to (and including) 1964, US 10c, 25c, 50c, (and when they were made, $1) coins were made of 90% silver. We made A LOT of these, so in terms of outright rarity, most are not rare. Today they're referred to as "junk silver" because in terms of collectibility, they're junk, but the 90% silver content means there's some inherent precious metal value (as of this moment on Jan 30, 2026, they have ~approximately~ 60x their face value in silver content, eg $6, $15, $30, and $60 in silver respectively.) So that's their basal value that fluctuates with the silver market. But the next layer is actual rarity / collectibility -- if a given coin is desirable enough that it surpasses its metal content, you get a different set of values. Now to your actual question: Do they get smelted/melted down? The answer is...sometimes. They trade somewhat like financial instruments, based on the assumption that you could melt them down (and there's a cost to doing so), so that's how people value the various silver coins. In reality, there's usually enough demand from people who want to hold physical silver in various forms that they don't actually need to be melted down. There's obviously a lot more to it, but that's the 5c version ;)
- tylervigen 8mo ago
  Great explanation, but your reference to the "todays 10,000" xkcd made me think of this: https://xkcd.com/2501/ https://xkcd.com/2501/
- vel0city 8mo ago
  > that's the 5c version Is that 5¢ copper or zinc?
- adastra22 8mo ago
  Is that more or less than the spot price? I would have assumed that they trade higher, though maybe the non collectibles trade are only a little bit higher.
  - nlh 8mo ago
wakawaka28 8mo ago
Collectible coins usually get melted as a last resort, if they stay on the shelf forever. The value of the metal is still in the coin though. Think about it: you could buy a very common coin with the same metal, or a slightly rare one. Which costs more? Now take the rare one and put a huge dent in it. Is it worth less than the metal content then?

pseudohadamard 8mo ago

They're incredibly sleazy scumbags. They buy silver coins at bullion-value or below, which is the lowest grade you can get for a coin, making a small profit on everything they buy and massive profits on the ones that are actually worth something as coins rather than bullion. And it's typically elderly people they rip off, who are thrilled to get the price of a cup of coffee for their 1884S Morgan dollar. Never, ever deal with these predators.

nlh 8mo ago
amen!