Junk silver melt value calculator What's that jar of coins worth?

The two numbers dealers quote, and why they differ

Search for junk silver and you will see 0.715 troy ounces per dollar of face value in one place and 0.7234 in another. Neither is a typo. They measure different things and the gap between them is 1.16 percent, which is real money on a big bag.

The larger figure is the mint standard, and it is pure arithmetic from the statute. The Coinage Act of 1873 set the half dollar at twelve and a half grams, with the quarter and dime at one half and one fifth of that weight. So one dollar of face value is 25 grams of coin. At the 900 parts per thousand fineness the same Act set, that is 22.5 grams of silver, and dividing by the 31.1034768 grams in a troy ounce gives 0.723392 troy ounces.

The smaller figure, 0.715, is the trade convention for circulated coins, and dealers describe it as allowing for average wear. We have not found a source that derives it, so treat it as a convention rather than a measurement. What you can check is the arithmetic between them, and 0.715 is 98.84 percent of the mint figure.

The calculator above uses the mint standard, because it is the one that traces to a statute. If a buyer quotes you off 0.715, that is not necessarily sharp practice, but you should know the difference is 1.16 percent before you agree.

Silver in each coin

Weights come from the statute rather than from a scale, so these are as-minted figures. A heavily worn coin holds slightly less.

The 40% Kennedy half is the one that catches calculators out. The Coinage Act of 1965 specifies a coin weighing 11.5 grams containing 4.6 grams of silver, so it is both lighter than the 12.5 gram silver half and far less pure. Those halves ran until the Bank Holding Company Act Amendments of 1970 allowed minting only until January 1, 1971.

Read the date on the coin, not the year it was struck

The usual rule of thumb is "pre-1965", and it is subtly wrong. The Coinage Act of 1965 permitted 90% silver striking to continue for a period after the Act, and required that any coins minted from 900 fine coin silver after the Act be inscribed with the year 1964. So some 90% silver coins were made after 1965 while carrying a 1964 date.

For a seller this makes the rule simpler, not harder. Sort on the date stamped on the coin. Dated 1964 or earlier means 90% silver for dimes, quarters and halves. The clad coins that replaced them contain no silver at all, and today's statutory weights at 31 U.S.C. 5112 are lighter, with the dime at 2.268 grams against the silver dime's 2.5.

War nickels are the odd one out. Nickels struck from 1942 to 1945 under the Second War Powers Act carry 35% silver, and 1942 exists in both compositions because the change happened partway through the year. The silver ones carry a large mintmark above Monticello.

Melting silver coins and what the rule actually says

People ask whether melting is allowed, and the answer usually offered is a vague "probably not". The regulation is easy to read. It is 31 CFR Part 82, titled "5-cent and one-cent coin regulations", and its prohibition says no person shall export, melt, or treat any 5-cent coin of the United States, or any one-cent coin of the United States. Silver dimes, quarters and half dollars are not in that list.

The rule goes further in the other direction too. It expressly exempts 5-cent coins inscribed 1942, 1943, 1944 or 1945 composed of an alloy of copper, silver and manganese, which is exactly the war nickel. Treasury does hold a standing power to extend such a rule to any coin, so this describes the regulation as it reads today rather than offering legal advice.

What you will actually be offered

Melt is the ceiling. We looked for a published payout percentage for junk silver and did not find one that we could verify on a dealer's own page, so this page prints no percentage rather than inventing a plausible one. What we did find is direction. CoinWeek reported in March 2026 that dealers buy junk silver at a discount to spot, and that many coin shops pay significantly below spot because the inventory does not move quickly, while paying closer to spot for .999 bullion.

So expect a discount, ask each buyer what percentage of melt they are paying rather than only the dollar total, and compare on that number. To grade an offer on gold rather than silver, the scrap gold calculator does that job.

How we measured this

Silver spot comes from a live feed, gold-api.com as the primary source, cross-checked against at least one other, and never typed by hand. The reading behind this page is $64.83 per troy ounce.

Coin weights are statutory, from the Coinage Act of 1873 for the 90% series and the Coinage Act of 1965 for the 40% half. Silver mass is gross weight times fineness, and troy ounces come from dividing by 31.1034768 as published by NIST. Every dollar figure on this page is computed in code at view time from those inputs. Where a figure could not be verified, such as a dealer payout percentage, the page says so instead of estimating.

Questions sellers actually ask

More tools