Hey CP people - take a gander - helpful info for TIff too,.. -K boy

Telling them to get those bids up?

Of note for bullion purposes, 40% clad and war nickels are both discounted due to higher refining costs.

Understood - but how mch dis count??

The main dealer in my area, which is also one of the larger ones in Canada, has this buy/sell spread for US loose silver:

Type / buy / sell
Pre 64 76% 95%
40% clad 56% 76%

The fact that they sell the 40% clad at just over 3/4 melt shows that they probably don't get much more from the refinery for it.

very helpful c q- K

hey, you looking for state qs from 2003 on??

Got 'em covered, thanks for asking!

Nice silver update. It's interesting to see the prices laid out that way. From what I've seen here in the SoEastern US dealers are close to the spreads ccg mentioned because they have to send all of their smeltable silver to Canada. Supposedly there's no one left in the US processing it.

Hey Art - thanks. Trust dealers to be sure they get their pound of flesh. K

I think that is somewhat suspect for the 90% silver coinage, since there is really no need for refining as these are freely tradable in $1000 face bags. They're even quoted daily in the Wall Street Journal! Today (8/24/05) on page B9 under cash prices, a bag of $1000 face of silver coins is quoted at $5,000 down from $5,064 on Monday. The only reason to smelt them is if you have a warehouse full of them and want to make good delivery on a silver futures contract. Around here, and most places I've been, that's the way dealers quote prices for junk silver coins, they might buy at 4.5x face and sell at 5.5x face. Most dealers won't even touch the 40% halves given the low margin, but since I get all of my 40% halves from circulation, I don't really care!

When junk silver gets to 48X sell and buy a house (I did in 1980.)

Mine went to college costs for my oldest two kids. Great profits. I had some 100 oz bars that I had paid something like $1.85 oz.

Of course, admittedly, silver would now have to get to 148X to buy the same one!