Hello,
I am a fairly new reader to SurvivalBlog. I must say I enjoy reading it and have found a ton of useful knowledge here. I have a question If you have time to answer. I have a large amount of old U.S. Coins and would like to refine the silver out of them myself. Is the possible for a do-it-yourselfer? If so, what is the best process for this? I am also considering melting down some old silverware and jewelry. I would want to cast my own mini bars or silver coins for ease of storing and bartering. I have reviewed Coinflation.com and have determined that I have a lot of coins in the pre-1965 range that contain 90% silver. (Which of course is worth about 25 times more than the face valve of the U.S. currency itself.)
For WTSHTF, I want to be prepared as much as I am able to for my situation at hand. I have already been stockpiling ammunition and canned goods. (I’m still a long ways from where I would like to be but I’m working on it one paycheck at a time.) – Trey H.
JWR Replies: I do not recommend melting any recognizable U.S., Canadian, or Mexican coins to cast into ingots. Here is my reasoning: First and foremost, coins have a known, well-recognized purity and value, which makes them ideal for barter. But privately-cast ingots will ALWAYS be treated with great suspicion, and the buyer may demand that they be assayed. Second, U.S. pre-1965 dimes, quarters and half dollars are 90% silver, alloyed with a hardener added, to give them sufficient durability for the rigors of day-to-day circulation. In contrast, silver ingots are typically cast as .999 fine (virtually pure) silver. So creating your own ingots would require a lot of time to not just melt the coins but also require adding nitric acid and extra time to skim away the hardener, which would be set aside as “dross”. Why risk chemical and heat burns and spend your precious time and your expensive fuel to melt coins to make them into something LESS recognizable, for barter? That simply makes no sense. Unless you are an expert artisan that is making jewelry, there is no point in melting silver coins. For barter, even silver jewelry is better left in “scrap” form — just “as is”. Furthermore, silver chains can be cut into incremental lengths with diagonal cutters or a cold chisel, to facilitate small barter transactions. This is much more difficult to do with thicker ingots, at least with any precision.
If you have a large quantity of scrap silver, them you are better off trading it to a well known reputable coin dealer. You can ask for either pre-1965 (90% silver) coins or .999 fine one-ounce silver “rounds”, in exchange. In the next few years, as silver advances past $50 per try ounce, I predict that 1/4-ounce and 1/2-ounce coins will be made in larger numbers than today. (A one ounce coin is simply becoming too valuable to be used for small transactions.)