Hello Jim,
I am hoping that you can verify something for me about the [U.S. circulated} 90% silver [coin] bags. I just received my order of a $1,000 face [value] bag from The Tulving Company of California. I believe that I saw their name [mentioned] on SurvivalBlog a number of months ago. They have great customer service and the product came faster than they had promised. What I received from them came shipped in a plastic paint pail and inside was a flour sack, cloth bag, full of dimes and the weight printed on the UPS sticker showed 57 pounds. Sounds good, I think, but the bag inside has no markings and wasn’t sealed or sewn shut. It was just closed with a zip tie plastic fastener. Is this right, or should I be concerned? I am considering purchasing additional bags from them and my wife brought up that maybe I should ask a few questions instead of just accepting this as being appropriate. I really want this to be fine because I don’t want to have to count out all these dimes! Your insight would be greatly appreciated by my family! – S.C. in Washington
JWR Replies: Yes, The Tulving Company has been mentioned several times on SurvivalBlog. Tulving is a reputable dealer, from all reports. Don’t worry that the bag wasn’t sealed. In fact, most $1K bags are NOT sold sealed or sewn. Typically, dealers run any pre-1965 silver coin orders that are large enough to be sold “loose” or bagged (rather than in rolls) through a mechanical coin counter. A quick visual inspection will show you that all of the coins are pre-1965. (Scan for any rims that show a copper streak–which would indicate that any post 1964 clad copper coins got mixed in.) There is certainly no need for you to count 10,000 dimes. As long as the bag weighs at least 52 pounds, then you got your full 715 troy ounces of silver. (BTW, that +/- 715 ounce figure also applies for circulated silver quarters and half dollars. But because of their different specifications, silver dollar $1,000 bags contain around 765 ounces of silver.)
BTW, the quick way to gauge the value of a $1,000 bag versus the spot price of silver on any given day is simply to multiply the spot price by 715. Thus, at yesterday’s spot silver price of $13.85 per ounce, your $1,000 bag of dimes is worth $9,902.75. (Or just think of it as 9.9 times face value.)