The idea is to first get started. Save
four silver quarters a month dated before 1964.
Do
you have a coin jug at home? Perhaps it isn’t a jug, per se, but a coffee
can, glass jar, or maybe even an old fashioned piggy bank? It might be
holding far more money than you realize!
If
you spend much time surfing various survival/prepper message boards and other
forums, you’ll no doubt run across the term “junk silver.” People want to
know, “What is junk silver? And, should I buy it?”
The
term refers to coins containing a high amount of actual silver, unlike most
common coins minted today.
Here’s
the cool part. If you have a coin jug at home, odds are you probably have at
least a few junk silver coins in there. While you won’t see them every day,
they do still crop up regularly.
Here
in the United States, junk silver coins are basically any coin (except
pennies and nickels) minted in 1964 or earlier.
Given
that half-dollars and other larger coins are somewhat rare in most of our
daily lives, we’re basically talking about dimes and quarters. If a coin is
categorized as junk silver, it does not have any numismatic value to
collectors.
The value
in junk silver is the silver itself, not the coin’s appearance.
The
only silver nickels in recent history are the “wartime” ones produced in 1942-1945. Even then, they only
contain about 30% silver, whereas most junk silver coins contain 90% silver.
If
after looking at the mint date you still aren’t sure if the coin is silver, a
silver coin sounds very different from a non-silver one when dropped
on a table. The sound is hard to describe but once you’ve heard it, you’ll
recognize it pretty quickly going forward.
Why
do preppers focus on junk silver?
Why
is it important to know
about junk silver? Well, for starters, junk silver is a very easy way to
get started with collecting precious metals for possible use as
alternative currency, should there come some sort of economic collapse. It
takes just a few seconds at the end of the day to examine the coins in your
pocket before you dump them into your coin jug.
On
top of that, junk silver coins are worth far more than their face
value. Generally speaking, if you have $1.40 in face value of junk silver
coins, you have one troy ounce of actual silver. As of this writing, an ounce
of silver is going for about $18.00 or so. I use Kitco to check
prices when I’m getting ready to buy.
Now,
honestly, that’s not a completely true comparison as junk silver coins aren’t
actually worth the full silver spot price. But, those dimes and quarters are
worth a ton more than what you’d get from a candy vending machine.
At
my house, we have two
separate jars, one for pennies and one for all other coins. I’ll usually
glance through my spare change, checking mint dates, before tossing the coins
into the appropriate jar. But, because I’m human and might miss seeing a junk
silver coin, we’ll have one of our children dump out the jar and check each
coin before we cash in the change. Often, they’ll find one or two coins we missed.
The junk silver coins are stored away under lock and key, just in case
we need them someday. If nothing else, they’ll be nice for the kids to have
someday.
Resources
for junk silver
via
survivalmom
