A Bag of Dimes

Today's silver porn centerfold is what is known in the industry as a "bag" of dimes.

For those of you that might not be familiar with US "junk" silver (pre-1965 half dollars, quarters, and dimes which contained 90% silver), a "Bag" is a term which means $1,000.00 face value. So that's 10,000 dimes, 4,000 quarters, or 2,000 half dollars. A full "bag" usually weighs 54-55 pounds and should contain 715 troy ounces of silver.

I usually like to include a "pot splash" pic where I dump them all out into a pile, but it took me forever to separate 10,000 dimes into these bags, so maybe another time!

I have been accumulating these dimes over many years. I either purchased rolls at my LCS or over eBay. I recently hit the 10K mark and achieved "bag" status.

When I buy my junk silver, I always try to buy coins as close to 1964 as possible. I tend to buy Kennedy '64 halves, later year Washington quarters and Roosevelt dimes. I rarely buy Mercury dimes, Standing Liberty quarters, or Walking Liberty halves. The reason is that the wear and tear on the older coins means I'm not getting as much silver as I should be.

Check out the following picture:

This is ten 1964 Roosevelt dimes (minted between 1946-1964) stacked next to ten Mercury dimes (minted between 1916-1945). There is literally 1.5 dime's width missing from the Mercury stack that was lost due to wear. Multiply that out by 1000 and you can see you're not getting all the silver you think you're getting.

There are many unscrupulous bullion dealers what will sell you a bag of "slugs" just like this. When you buy a so-called bag expecting to get 715 oz of silver, you're actually getting around 650 oz.

So if you're going to buy junk silver, always try to get as close to 1964 as possible.

Stack On!