Pre 20s UK silver coins

[Mightymogs]

Was just wondering if anyone has discovered unusual methods of locating silver pre 20s silver coins? For example second hand shops or flea markets. 

[LawrenceChard]

39 minutes ago, Mightymogs said:

Was just wondering if anyone has discovered unusual methods of locating silver pre 20s silver coins? For example second hand shops or flea markets. 

I used to just sort it out of £100 bank sacks, although most of it was pre'47!

😎

[Bigmarc]

1 hour ago, Mightymogs said:

Was just wondering if anyone has discovered unusual methods of locating silver pre 20s silver coins? For example second hand shops or flea markets. 

I try all the time, what I find is if you are looking for something you will never find it, stop looking and they will pop up. I found some at a car boot the other week for about 5% over spot. I am finding all auctions are over priced at the mo.

Occasionally there are sellers on here, one guy sells scrap by the kg bag.

Edited August 2, 2022 by Bigmarc

[Mightymogs]

I must admit I do like the idea of stumbling across some bargains. Obviously TSF is a great place to find some, however a little proactivity and reward appeals to me. Treasure hunting if you will and maybe magical below spot prices await 😁

[modofantasma]

4 hours ago, Mightymogs said:

Treasure hunting if you will and maybe magical below spot prices await 😁

I'd go and ask smaller dealers or antique shops or jewelers in person. Call in in person initially and perhaps phoning after that every couple of weeks, or pop in when you're in the area, tell them what you're after and one day it might just suit them to offload to you for some quick easy cash. 

Going the extra effort and then consistently being there ready stands out Vs just sending them an email once. 

[SidS]

On 02/08/2022 at 21:24, LawrenceChard said:

I used to just sort it out of £100 bank sacks, although most of it was pre'47!

😎

I've often wondered about this. How prevalent were pre-47s in the 1950s and 60s?

I know pre-20s were still around, but very few and far between!

[LawrenceChard]

3 hours ago, SidS said:

I've often wondered about this. How prevalent were pre-47s in the 1950s and 60s?

I know pre-20s were still around, but very few and far between!

I wish I could have given you a quick answer from memory or contemporary notes, but I had to do some research including price look-ups, which are more easily available in US dollars than in pounds sterling, so I would also need to find historic exchange rates, feed them into a spreadsheet, and more.

I think my first awareness of silver prices, and silver content in coins, was about American coins, probably because they were still using 90% silver in coins up to and including the 1964 Kennedy half dollar.

The Silver Institute https://www.silverinstitute.org/silverprice/1960-1965/ has this:

"Once the Treasury stopped selling at that price, market quotes for silver quickly rose. In June 1963 the Treasury replaced the $1 silver certificate with Federal Reserve notes. By 1963, silver prices reached $1.29, the monetary value of silver in coinage. At prices above this level, holders of silver certificates would have been able to redeem them for more valuable silver, under the now-defunct silver certificate legislation. (The other trigger price the Treasury worried about was $1.38, at which level it would have become profitable to recycle coinage for its silver content.)"

I can remember silver certificates selling for a slight premium, and this must have been around 1963/4.

While checking historic silver prices in pounds, using https://www.chards.co.uk/silver-price/silver-price-history, I noticed a price as low as £0.07 in January 1932. Prices from 1792 to 1891, they had been about £0.30 to £0.20 per ounce, with a few peaks at around £0.36; I can only assume that the 1932 low was due to the Great Depression.

Silver would have need to be above about 0.30 per ounce to make pre-1920 coins worth a premium for their silver content, and back then we were not aware of anyone stashing silver coins as a precious metal investment, mot of the market activity was aimed at scrapping it, and refining cost could easily have been as high as about 20%, meaning prices above about 40p would have been needed. This was reached in 1960, but I was never aware of any big volume market.

For pre-1947 coins, spot silver would have needed to be above about 60p, and this was reached in 1966. Again, I was not aware of any volume market until later.

I can see that spot silver was £1.88 per ounce in January 1974, and I can remember having an extremely busy period, or about 6 months during 1974, which entailed 16 hours working days, with perhaps 12 hours on Sunday. At one period, we were shipping up to 1.5 tonnes about 3 times per week, to be scrapped. Some time before that, we did sort through bank bags, and often got about 20% yield of pre-1947, with a few pre-1920 finds.

Before the end of 1947, most tof the pre-1947 coins had all but disappeared form circulation, although some still turned up from bank's old "bullion" stock reserves.

By the time silver hit over £21 in the crazy Bunker Hunt days of 1980, most of the scrap silver we handled came from silver items such as cutlery, trophies, tea sets, etc., rather than coinage.

Some of the dates and values above may be approximate, because it is not quick and easy to find daily prices in sterling for the period.

 

[SidS]

3 hours ago, LawrenceChard said:

I noticed a price as low as £0.07 in January 1932. Prices from 1792 to 1891, they had been about £0.30 to £0.20 per ounce, with a few peaks at around £0.36; I can only assume that the 1932 low was due to the Great Depression.

From this I take it that silver holds its own in a depression? 😁

Some really good info there and well researched.

I was aware of a fair amount of the American side you presented (same happened in Switzerland too - lots of tourists and lots of heavy jangling suitcases in the 1960s!)

I'm surprised the pre-47s went out of circulation as quick as the end of that year, if no one was hoarding it.

The US 1964 issues were minted with frozen dates till about mid-1966, and there was massive hoarding ongoing throughout those years, but it took till about 1970 for the silver to get to the point where it was an unusual thing to see in one's change - or so I read.

[LawrenceChard]

29 minutes ago, SidS said:

From this I take it that silver holds its own in a depression? 😁

Some really good info there and well researched.

I was aware of a fair amount of the American side you presented (same happened in Switzerland too - lots of tourists and lots of heavy jangling suitcases in the 1960s!)

I'm surprised the pre-47s went out of circulation as quick as the end of that year, if no one was hoarding it.

The US 1964 issues were minted with frozen dates till about mid-1966, and there was massive hoarding ongoing throughout those years, but it took till about 1970 for the silver to get to the point where it was an unusual thing to see in one's change - or so I read.

£0.07 per ounce was about 1/3rd to 1/4 of its very previous stable price, so no, it fared terribly in the depression.

The rapid disappearance of pre-47 was due to the big price increase, and at least 99% of it was being scrapped.

Investment in silver only seems to have arrived in the UK after Investment Gold became exempt from VAT from 1st January 2000, which sounds conterintuitives, but I suspect the increased interest in gold spilled over into other precious metals, mainly silver.

😎

[SidS]

17 minutes ago, LawrenceChard said:

£0.07 per ounce was about 1/3rd to 1/4 of its very previous stable price, so no, it fared terribly in the depression.

😎

There was a smiley face there! 😁

Yes £0.07 per ounce was dire really.

Hmm, investment in silver really started around 2000 you say. No coincidence that's when I started! I was there at the beginning. Still got my three silver dollars.

I remember being able to buy pre-47 half crowns for 50p a pop back then too.

 

[Petra]

Just think of the tons of silver that has been scrapped! Coins, but all that stuff made of silver. I appreciate there is an industrial use for silver, but where did it all go? With the coins it seems amazing to look back and see how much was in circulation. Obviously everyone got paid cash, but like when we went decimal, the amount that was just left in homes etc.

[Happypanda88]

On 03/08/2022 at 13:55, Mightymogs said:

I must admit I do like the idea of stumbling across some bargains. Obviously TSF is a great place to find some, however a little proactivity and reward appeals to me. Treasure hunting if you will and maybe magical below spot prices await 😁

I think it's very unlikely for anyone to find pre-1920 for a bargain nowadays (below spot price). The bulk of these silver coins will be in the hands of collectors, whether it be scrap or numismatics. Any joe public who finds these or inherited them will automatically assume they are worth alot because of the age, being over a hundred years old !   And collectors will know the market value so won't be giving them away cheaply.

[Happypanda88]

9 hours ago, SidS said:

I remember being able to buy pre-47 half crowns for 50p a pop back then too.

I remember pulling out pre-1947 shillings and florins from my parents cash register and bank coin bags back in the late 1970s. They cost me nothing ! 😁

[SidS]

5 hours ago, Happypanda88 said:

I remember pulling out pre-1947 shillings and florins from my parents cash register and bank coin bags back in the late 1970s. They cost me nothing ! 😁

I only ever saw ONE silver coin in circulation for definite.

The lady at my local little post office showed me a George V 1928-1936 era florin that she'd received in payment earlier in the day - she kept it to my knowledge. This was in 1992, just after the new smaller 10p coins had debuted. Only George V coin I'd ever seen in the wild, being born long after decimalisation.

It is likely I have spent some 1937-1946 era florins myself in the late 80s and early 90s.

Although I was interested in coins, I wasn't really up on the alloys etc. But I did look at the dates, and I'm sure I've had at least one 1930s 2/- piece. But they looked very much like the other everyday, unremarkable cupro-nickel George florins, so I wouldn't have thought to pull them out - after all 10p was 10p!

 

[SidS]

14 hours ago, Petra said:

Just think of the tons of silver that has been scrapped! Coins, but all that stuff made of silver. I appreciate there is an industrial use for silver, but where did it all go? With the coins it seems amazing to look back and see how much was in circulation. Obviously everyone got paid cash, but like when we went decimal, the amount that was just left in homes etc.

Even with all that silver scrapped and turned in bars, jewellery etc. There's still loads of pre-1920 silver out there - it's not rare or scarce as in 'unobtainable' merely unobtainable at spot or anywhere near it - but that's due to two issues. First, numismatic value is starting to attach itself more keenly due to 'age' and perceived value. Secondly, the spot price (paper price) is nowhere near the actual metal price (specie price).

[Bigmarc]

I haven't bought any in a while but have noticed on eBay that they are going for spot plus 30%. 

A couple of years ago it was spot plus 10% at most. 

What are you all willing to pay for it?

[SidS]

Totally depends on the grade.

Proper scrap: damaged, badly dipped, corroded, verdigried, holed, bent and clipped/mounted or really dirty like they've been dug up, then I wouldn't even pay spot for, as I wouldn't want them.

Fair to Fine, then spot + 10-15% max.

Fine to VF then more than happy to increase the % above spot. Higher than VF to UNC, book price as per Spinks etc.

I've been stashing pre-1920 for over 20 years, a little at a time.

My goal hasn't really been stashing by weight, I've spent a few years 'upgrading'. Almost all coins below Fine have been culled (minus some earlier dates or rarer dates). I'm aiming mostly from F-EF across the board.

It was great about 14 years ago, bulk buying lots on eBay, say about £10 face over the year, halving that amount by stashing all the F+ coins into one pile and all the damaged and worn coins into another. Then reselling the £5 face in the junk back on eBay - invariably I'd get back almost what I'd spent once fees had been deducted. However, I'd be left with £5 face of decent, undamaged coins. It was a very rewarding cherry picking experience.

Really hard to do now though as the premiums don't warrant buying what essentially is mostly c**p. The quality of what is available has diminished greatly since the price increase. Most bulk lots are probably the tosh, I've already cherry picked and sold back a few years ago.

The only game left on eBay and barely worth playing any more was the buy a bulk load of George VI florins and half crowns and pull out the silver ones hidden amongst them. It seems everybody and their mothers now know that pre-47 coins are silver, so even that's dried up in the last four years or so.

So I just tend to buy single coins these days, hunting out semi-keys and only buying if the dealer will allow discounts and haggling down.