Silver coin melts and coin premiums

The Charleston Voice has an interesting discussion about melting down silver coins for their silver content, buying junk silver and estimating the current population of silver coins in the market today.

Some people are under the impression that if the economy were to fail, we would go back to a metals-based economy, and the silver or gold content of coins would again be the measure of a coin’s worth. Whether that is accurate or not remains to be seen.