Do you have a pile of old silver Mercury Dimes lying around that you inherited, or that you collected out of circulation years ago? Those old silver dimes are worth more than 10 cents each.
Mercury Dimes, or Winged Liberty Capped Dimes, were produced from 1916 through 1945. Many folks are under the misconception that they are worth more than face value simply because they are old and/or because you do not see them in change anymore. This is not the case. They are worth more than face value mostly because of their silver content. Many older coins are valued more than newer ones, but that is because they also had lesser mintages than coins of present. In the Mercury Dime category, most dimes have a market price that is tied to the bullion market.
One thing to note, these coins are made out of silver, but they are not 100% silver. They were assembled out of a 90% silver and 10% copper alloy. Another mistake is that if you had 10 dimes, this is one ounce of silver. Again, not so. One dime weighs 0.08038 ounces. If you had 10 silver dimes, they would weigh .8038 of an ounce. Then take into consideration that they are 90% silver and you can see that computing the price is not just taking the current silver price.
Now that we have completed some background on the coin, how do you sell your collection? Many folks are intimidated of this process, but it is in truth quite easy. Today, most silver coins, especially those dated from 1900 through 1965 are simply sold as a percentage of face value. In simple terms, a dealer may quote that s/he is paying 19 times face. This means for each dollar in face value of silver coins, the dealer is paying $19.00. So if you had a roll of silver dimes, which contains 50 dimes or $5.00, then take the face value of the coins ($5.00 times $19) and you get what the dealer may pay. So in this example, a roll of silver dimes may be worth $95.
This is an basic way to figure out the estimated value of your silver coins. Of course, the coins are only worth what someone is willing to pay for them. Without a written offer, they might has well be worth nothing.
Many people ask the question of should they clean their coins. The reply to that is consistently no. Even if the coins are average/non collector coins, you should not clean your coins as there is always a possibility there may be a rare coin, die error, etc,. in the batch and you do not to reduce the overall worth. The fact is, cleaning coins reduces the value.
There are a lot places you can go to when selling your coins, but in my mind the best value is to get ahold of a coin buyer. Craigs List may be an easy alternative, but you will be contacted by many odd folks and possibly thieves. You must also avoid traveling coin buyers who setup in hotels. Many folks view the coin dealer like the used car salesman. But in reality, the coin dealer, whether online or at a shop is possibly to give you the most cash for your coins as who else knows the market price better than someone who is in business to buy and sell coins.
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