Junk Silver: How to Calculate What a Bag Is Actually Worth

Junk silver is sold by its face value, a "$1 bag," a "$100 lot," but it's worth its silver content, which is many times that face. So when someone's selling a pile of old coins, or you're sitting on a jar of them, the real question is how much silver is actually in there and what it's worth. The good news is it's a simple calculation with two numbers to remember, and once you have them you can price any bag in your head.

A quick reminder of what counts

Junk silver is old circulating coins valued for their metal, not their collectibility. In the US that's pre-1965 dimes, quarters, and half dollars, which were 90% silver. In Canada it's coins dated 1966 and earlier, which were 80% silver (1967 was a transitional year, and 1968 dropped to 50% then nickel). They're called junk only because their value is the silver, not any rarity. (That's what junk silver is, the short version.)

The reason you can't just weigh the coins and multiply by spot is that they're not pure, they're alloyed with copper, and worn from decades of pockets. So the industry uses a standard silver-content figure per dollar of face value that already accounts for average wear. That's the number that makes this easy.

The two numbers to remember

Here's the whole trick. Each dollar of face value contains a known, average amount of pure silver:

US 90% silver (pre-1965 dimes, quarters, half dollars): about 0.715 troy ounces of silver per $1 face value.

Canadian 80% silver (1966-and-earlier dimes, quarters, half dollars): about 0.60 troy ounces of silver per $1 face value.

That's it. Those two figures handle the vast majority of junk silver you'll run into. (The Canadian 0.60 is the easy one: just multiply face value by 0.6.)

The formula, and what a bag is worth

Multiply the face value by the silver-per-dollar figure to get total ounces, then multiply by spot to get the melt value:

Face value x silver per dollar x spot price = melt value.

Worked out at a spot of $70 an ounce:

So $100 of face value in US 90% coins holds about 71.5 ounces of silver, worth roughly $5,000 at $70 spot. The same $100 face in Canadian 80% holds 60 ounces, worth about $4,200. The face value on the coins ($100) is almost irrelevant. The silver is the whole story.

The "times face" shorthand dealers use

Dealers often quote junk silver as a multiple of face value, like "50 times face," which floats with the spot price. You can work out the melt multiplier yourself: just multiply spot by the silver-per-dollar figure. At $70 spot, US 90% silver is worth about $50 per $1 face (0.715 x 70), so melt is roughly "50 times face." Canadian 80% works out to about $42 per $1 face (0.60 x 70), or "42 times face."

That gives you an instant check on any offer. If a dealer offers "48 times face" on US 90% when melt is about 50, they're paying just under melt, which is normal for a buyer. If someone's selling at "55 times face," they're charging a premium over melt, and you can decide if it's fair. The multiplier turns a confusing quote into a number you can actually judge.

The catches that change the math

A few honest warnings, because junk silver has some traps.

The constants are for the standard coins only. The 0.715 and 0.60 figures apply to 90% US and 80% Canadian dimes, quarters, and halves. They do not apply to 35% silver war nickels, 40% Kennedy halves (1965 to 1970), or silver dollars, which all have different content. Lumping those in with the standard figure is the most common calculation error, so sort them out and value them separately.

Wear varies. The figures assume average circulation. Heavily worn "cull" coins hold slightly less, and lightly worn or uncirculated coins slightly more, but for a normal mixed bag the standard numbers are close enough to trust.

Some coins are worth more than their melt. A key date or a coin in genuinely collectible condition can be worth well above its silver, and melting-value math will undervalue it. So before you sell a bag at melt, it pays to glance for anything that might be a numismatic piece rather than plain junk. That's a separate market from the metal. (The fair-premium cheat sheet covers how collector value sits apart from metal value.)

And in Canada, junk silver is taxable. Because it's below the 99.9% purity that earns the bullion exemption, junk silver is subject to GST/HST, unlike a .999 Maple. So factor the tax into what a bag really costs you here, and the app now lets you enter your rate so it folds into your all-in. (Here's the full breakdown of what's tax-exempt and what isn't.)

Let the tool do it

The whole calculation, content, melt, and where an offer sits against it, is what the app runs for you. Drop in a junk silver lot and Quick Check computes the melt value and all-in cost against live spot, so you can see instantly whether a "times face" price is above or below melt. Enter your own tax rate and it folds into that all-in too, with investment bullion staying exempt. Selling the bag instead of buying it? What's It Worth? runs the same coins the other way and estimates what a dealer would pay you. (New to the terms? The glossary's here.)

The short version

Junk silver is worth its silver, not its face. Remember two numbers, 0.715 ounces per dollar for US 90% and 0.60 for Canadian 80%, multiply face value by that and by spot, and you've got the melt value of any bag. Use the "times face" shorthand to check offers, keep the oddball coins (war nickels, 40% halves, dollars) out of the standard math, watch for key dates worth more than melt, and remember it's taxable in Canada. No hype, no hot tips, just what the silver in the bag is actually worth.