# value of coin v. value of metal **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 4, 2011, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/value-of-coin-v-value-of-metal/573477 "2011-03-04T13:49:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2011, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/value-of-coin-v-value-of-metal/573477/21 "2011-03-04T21:07:36Z")
> [@samclem](#): > > I’d beg to differ. I’ll wager that 90%+ of all silver coins sold for their silver value in the last year have been melted. Why would they do so, when the coins are worth slightly more than the silver in them? You not only lose that small value, but there’s the cost of refining, casting, etc. There’s no reason to do so, and several reasons not to. The site I linked to is evidence that bags of junk silver are very common. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2011, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/value-of-coin-v-value-of-metal/573477/22 "2011-03-04T21:15:42Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Why would they do so, when the coins are worth slightly more than the silver in them? You not only lose that small value, but there’s the cost of refining, casting, etc. There’s no reason to do so, and several reasons not to. The site I linked to is evidence that bags of junk silver are very common. Supply and demand. We buy about $1000. face value in silver coins/day these days. We sell back, over the counter, about $200. face value/day. I would assume that’s typical of many coin dealers. The supply coming in overwhelms the demand for the item. Thus, it goes to the refinery, to be melted into pure silver bars, for which there is a great demand worldwide. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2011, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/value-of-coin-v-value-of-metal/573477/23 "2011-03-04T21:46:49Z")
> [@spark240](#): > > Wait a minute. Doesn’t _the gold standard_ mean that the value of the dollar itself, as a unit, is tied to the value of gold? “Dollars” are a measurement _of_ gold, in effect. A five-dollar gold piece can’t be anything but five dollars worth of gold. Sure it can, if the rest of the world chooses to value gold at a higher price than your gold coin’s stated monetary value. The US, prior to April,1933, said that a $5 gold coin had $5.15 worth of gold value. If you gave your bank a $5 banknote, the bank would give you a $5 gold coin. By late 1933, with the US no longer on the Gold Standard, the world price of gold had risen to $35/ounce. So, if you were a Foreign government such as France, you could have redeemed $5 in US banknotes(spent by tourists) for a $5 gold coin, which you could have sold on the open market for $8+. Pretty good profit. ---
**Author:** ![Erdosain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/erdosain/32/7284_2.png) [@Erdosain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Erdosain)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2011, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/value-of-coin-v-value-of-metal/573477/24 "2011-03-05T00:18:58Z")
> [@samclem](#): > > It was the price of _copper_ that went up and caused a law to be made that you couldn’t melt cents or nickels. Ah, thanks for the correction. I should have checked Wikipedia before posting. According to Wikipedia, nickels are currently worth 7.3 cents and pre-1982 pennies are worth almost 3 cents. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/value-of-coin-v-value-of-metal/573477.md?page=1)