Silver bullion coins, is condition important ?

[TrickyD]

A lot of 1oz coins, Maple's, Britannia's etc get milk spots. Would you avoid coins with excessive tarnishing or milk spots, I mean, an ounce of silver is an ounce of silver, right ?

[MadCityMatt]

From what I understand it doesn't matter so much, especially if you're selling to a refiner since they're going to just melt it down anyway. If you were selling just based on their value as a coin though, I think it'd depend on what the person was looking for. 

[Alex944]

Depends what the buyer is looking for really. I have no issues purchasing spotted coins, but I would expect the price to reflect the condition to an extent. For instance, if you can buy a BU condition coin for 28 GBP, I wouldn't pay that same 28 GBP for a spotted coin.

If you are looking to sell and you pick a price between spot and premium (so using the example above, between 25 and 26 pounds), I'm quite sure you'll have plenty of interested buyers.

[MetalMandible]

I just picked up a tube of "off quality" Silver Eagles, which implies that they will be tarnished/spotted/or otherwise beat up.  For government minted bullion, I believe that you can't go wrong buying these, regardless of your intention, provided the price reflects the quality (as Alex944 pointed out).

[SilverNoobFaqMan]

Just wanted to add to this question/thread as I was wondering the same thing...

Is there a place that would be better to look for silver coins or bars in which handling the metal directly is not as compromising as keeping the piece in a sealed plastic container, for example?  Would this simply be used pieces or sellers on a forum like this?  Or types of pieces - would one simply look for "off quality" in the description?

[Alex944]

 

31 minutes ago, SilverNoobFaqMan said:

Is there a place that would be better to look for silver coins or bars in which handling the metal directly is not as compromising as keeping the piece in a sealed plastic container, for example?  Would this simply be used pieces or sellers on a forum like this?

Some dealers may offer second hand items for a lower premium and they will often note that these are second hand or circulated and thus slight defects like spotting or some dings can be expected.

You'll find that on this forum, people will attest to the quality of what they are offering to sell. What helped me a lot with understanding this is going through the buy&sell sections and look at several completed listings. It'll give you an idea of what people are offering and ballpark figures of what people are willing to pay for it. Additionally, you'll often see that sellers put a description of what they sell, BU, great quality, if coins are spotted or slightly damaged, etc.

The community here is (in my experience) very honest in what they are selling, because there is no merit for a seller to not be honest about it in the long run. If a seller would not deliver as promised, chances are that they will not be able to sell here anymore because it's mainly operated on trust. If the community doesn't trust the seller / seller has poor feedback, people will be much less inclined to purchase from them.  

If you buy through the forum, just ask for (additional) pictures. I don't think any seller has an issue with providing these if they are acting with good intentions.
 

[Robda1986]

Early Maples I don't buy unless they have milk spots due to counterfeit coins not being as susceptible to milk spots counter intuitive I know