Silver coins for collapse currency

SILVER – Currency For Collapse

Silver is used in industry, in jewelry, and as a method of wealth preservation. You might also say that it is a form of currency for collapse. Economic / Financial collapse.

Silver has been used as a medium of exchange dating back to the earliest of records. It has always been considered to be a form of money.

Even up until the late 19th century, most nations money were on a silver standard. Silver coins making up the main circulating currency.

Silver coins are no longer used as national currency. It has all been replaced by Fiat ‘paper’. However silver is still collected, stacked, and invested by many people. Why? One reason is a hedge against inflation and today’s rickety financial systems.

People who know the history of currencies know that EVERY ‘paper’ currency ever created has ALWAYS collapsed. Ours will eventually be no different.

And most critical-thinking people today know that our current system and foundation is no longer on solid ground…

I find this to be interesting… That is, after you have purchased some of your own physical silver… hold a silver ounce in one hand (such as a US Mint 1-ounce Silver Eagle), and hold a 20 dollar bill in the other. While at todays silver price, the spot price is about $22 (though more with dealer premiums), that paper twenty-dollar-bill doesn’t feel as good as that silver ounce in your hand…

It makes sense to keep some physical silver in your possession

For the preparedness minded, it makes logical sense to keep some physical silver in one’s possession. It is one form of money that has been accepted for thousands of years. And it will continue in this way – even long after the complete collapse of todays existing Fiat paper currency.

While a reflexive ‘knee-jerk’ reaction from some people might be to say something like “You can’t eat silver, so what good is it during a time of socioeconomic collapse?”

The fact is, there are innumerable hypothetical collapse scenarios. Silver is simply one way to preserve one’s wealth, and to have an emergency means of barter and exchange for ‘just in case’.

Silver hedge against inflation or collapse

Lets say that the dollar is being inflated away (it is as we speak). As inflation eats into the purchasing power of todays Fiat money (e.g. the dollar), it costs more and more to buy goods and services. There are plenty of examples throughout history when a nations currency entered a period of hyperinflation (which the dollar may do one day too). When that happens it’s purchasing power will diminish greatly, and quickly. During times of inflation (and hyperinflation) precious metals such as silver will become higher and higher priced within the inflated currency – thus holding it’s value as it were.

Lets say that today’s current paper currency has one day become essentially worthless (post-collapse), and regional bartering has become the new normal during ‘the collapse’ period. While goods and services are a means of exchange, there’s little doubt that silver too will be a medium of exchange for payment and trade. It may even become an underground currency during a time when national and/or global digital currency is mandated (which is apparently coming).

Post-collapse currency

During such a time, even a 1-ounce silver coin may become a very high value – requiring the use of smaller denominations of silver for commerce & trade. This will likely include the use of pre-1965 coins (e.g. quarter, dimes) that are 90% silver. Most coins minted in the United States before 1965 were 90% silver and 10% copper.

Want to know how much is a silver quarter worth? You can calculate the value of any silver quarter by multiplying the silver content with the current market silver price. Each 90% silver quarter contains 0.18084 troy oz of fine silver. One ounce of silver is equal to 5.5 Silver quarters.

From our sponsor at GoldenEagleCoins:

90% Silver Roosevelt Dimes
90% Silver Washington Quarters

You might consider to acquire some amount of physical silver – not only for financial insurance but for diversification and peace-of-mind. You might consider to diversify and convert some of your fiat paper currency into physical silver as insurance against the current collapsing financial system.

Note: One’s own preparedness need to be in reasonable order first!

[ Read: States That Do (and Don’t) Tax The Sale Of Gold & Silver Bullion ]

38 Comments

  1. I better get up to the attic and rummage through some trunks. When my husband was a boy he collected nickels. This would be in the fifties. Wow! We could be rich.
    I wonder about sterling silver tea sets, candlestick holders etc. what is their value?

    1. Skeezix,

      U.S. pre-64 silver coins are 90% silver. Authentic sterling silver is 92.5% purity. Melt weight or silver content value would be higher on that sterling silverware/tea service, etc.

    2. About that. Only a few nickles during world war 2 have some silver in them. They needed the nickle for the war effort. That being said – the price of nickle is going up also.

  2. Dumped my emergency find into silver a couple months ago.
    Right after I replaced most of that fund I broke a tooth, just wonderful.

    Couple years ago I had something over 500 silver coins, very sad I sold 95% of it to get my car fixed when I really only needed $4,000, I ended up wasting some but I also used it to add several hundred pounds of rice/beans and the mylar-o2 absorbers-buckets ect to put most of it away for decades hopefully.

    Having all that silver gave me a sense of security, after I sold it I seriously felt less secure and less safe.

  3. i have about 25 lbs of old peace silver dollars, old dimes, quarters and half dollars put back, just stuff i have come across over the years in change. i have given a lot of the Peace dollars away over the years to kids, just for trinkets to them, they always think they’re cool. i don’t expect to ever need them myself. but ya never know.

  4. Fiat money has always needed silver (or gold )as a defense against loss as Ken mentioned above. I propose that all silver ( and gold) always needs a defense against loss——- that defense is lead. Do not ever forget that!

  5. Not against owning silver (or other PMs) at all. Just that it will be a better thing on the other side of a collapse. Then it will really come into its own. But not so much in between times.

  6. Not doubting Ken’s math. It is correct. An easy way for me, $1.40 of “junk” silver (original face value) equals one ounce of silver However ya get there: 14 dimes, one silver dollar and 4 dimes, 5 quarters and one and a half dimes, etc.

    Very concerning times. Someone mentioned nickels. They likely have value for collectors, but no silver content. Hard goods will definitely have value. Those who have chosen to NOT do the ham thing may live to regret that decision. At least make an attempt to befriend a local ham. Comms may well be a valuable barter item. More likely, a good friend to have.

    1. Plainsmedic, Good to know. So, 14 90% dimes = 1 Troy ounce of silver. That’s 7.14 oz in 100 pieces, not taking into account wearing down through use. Therefore, at $239.40 for 100 old dimes, silver costs $33.53 per oz. Silver spot price is $22.54. I haven’t purchased (or shopped for) PMs in more than a decade. Is this the usual mark-up these days?

      1. Yes, premiums are all high above spot for silver – with some variations. Supply and Demand at work too. And demand is very high right now. It goes to show that the spot price is being suppressed to an extent, and not fully allowed to seek real market price. Silver ‘paper shorts’ and the London ‘fix’…

        1. When I bought mine tax was included but I paid $29 cash for silver that was valued at a bit over $23 per troy ounce.
          The best price I found was SD silver but they added tax so that made it almost equal to what I paid.
          Then WI wants it’s sales tax.

          If I was buying enough I could move to ILL or MN for a few days as they don’t charge silver tax.
          WI did try to end silver tax, I haven’t herd what that do nothing Evers said about it.

    2. During WWII, silver was added to the 5 cent pieces. I think the silver content of the war nickels was 35%. Not considered worthless as they do have a premium over other nickels of that age.

      1. Look for the prominent mint mark over the capital building on the reverse for the silver nickels.

      2. Nickels have had the same content since 1866, 75% copper and 25% nickel. The War nickels were changed to 35% silver, 9% manganese, and 56% copper, and then back to 75/25 CuNi that they remain today. The US nickel is the only coin we have still made from its original metals and have not been devalued by changing to a cheaper metal. Price in metals of a current (and any, other than the War Nickels) is about 8 cents currently. I have to look at copper though I think it might have been going up recently. (been a while since I looked). Its the only coin we have still worth more in what its made of than face value. Good luck finding enough War nickels to be worth much in silver. Each has a silver content equal to 0.056 Troy ounces of pure silver. And they are fairly hard to find. You need 20 to have an once of silver. For a while I would take an extra $100 bill to the bank and request it in Nickels. I’ve gone through $800 in Nickels and found 4 War nickels, bunches of Buffalo nickels and a couple of the ultra rare ones. The big thing in Nickel searching is for known and unknown mint errors. Some are pretty rare and can be worth $$. So even with all the $800 in nickels, I have $1,268 in metals. Although hard to separate the two metals, CuNi is valuable and useful just by itself. So those that hoard nickels, already have 1.6 face value just owning the metal.

        1. I will tell you, hauling $100 in nickels is not easy. Silver is much more efficient. But in the same light, hauling a lot of silver around too is not so fun. Gold is much more convenient for hauling around. Research a bit and tell me if you think having nickels might be worth it some day. Really its worth it now. Remember when pennies were copper? Bet you wish you had all the copper pennies you ever had. Well you can get them back in nickels. There is more copper (and value) in a nickel than there is copper in a copper penny? How’s that for reasoning? Why sift through millions of pennies looking for copper ones. You can get more than the equivalent of a copper penny in every nickel, even those issued today.

  7. “EVERY ‘paper’ currency ever created has ALWAYS collapsed.” Nope. There are about 180 currencies in use around the world today. At lease eleven countries have adopted the US$ as their official currency. Saves them the cost of production. And of reprinting every time there is a regime change. Adopting paper-like currency does not automatically cause a collapse of that currency. Nor can the two be correlated as most economies that existed before paper money was adopted are long gone. I have Kuwaiti dinars from when I lived there. They are just a curiosity now. After the Iraqi invasion and looting, Kuwait replaced that currency to ensure that those who stole their treasury and robbed their banks could not profit from their bad behavior. Currency stability and value reflects the condition of a country’s economy, nothing more. Holding PMs as a hedge against inflation is a tacit plan to convert it at some point back into currency. Having PMs on hand as a level four prep is just good common sense.

    1. A little searching reveals lists of failed currencies. I saw one that listed 590 of them, for example. All paper will eventually go bye bye. While I need some dollars to function in this present system, I also diversify extra dollars into physical tangible things that I can posses. That’s a pretty wide category. However Silver is one of my diversifications, stashed in a Safe. I do not trust that future paper dollars will be worth much more than a sheet or two of toilet paper as we apparently progress down the Venezuelan road…

      1. HAHAHA! I love your hypothesis! NRP’s 600+ rolls of TP storage will finally pay big dividends! Just in time for retirement.

    1. Good article. A little dated but still very valid. Interesting thing though, they are still 75/25 CuNi :-)

  8. Keep in mind, my friends, that the Leviathan can make transactions involving silver or other precious metals unlawful. A very thought-provoking blogvel: THE DAY THE DOLLAR DIED was posted on the John Galt Shenandoah website almost 20 years ago. Read it. Any economic crisis will create legions of snitches, who will take the FEDGOV crumbs if they can finger a citizen who is transacting business in precious metals or other forms of barter. Depending on where you live, you may be setting yourself up. Just look at Venezuela. Who is on top? The politicians, the cops, and the military are still in charge. Plan accordingly.

  9. Thanks to everyone for your thoughts. One may want to consider adding some lead to the collection. Just think of it as insurance on your insurance. Be well.

    1. Add brass and copper as well, TKD.

      Prices are reasonably low right now.

  10. The thing with PMs, as I mentioned in a comment some time back, is trust. I trust minted circulated coins. I trust minted uncirculated coins put out by a government mint. I trust stamped sterling silver. I instinctively do not trust anyone saying that this shiny mental is gold or silver. As I only hold such things in case of total collapse, when folks say there are ways to tell, I also don’t trust that those ways will be reliable, or reagents needed for those ways will be available. Claimed weights are another matter of trust. If we somehow get knocked back to a pre-industrial state, where does that leave us? With the need for a disinterested third party – the assay office, otherwise known as a bank. Someone with the knowledge and ability to determine weight and purity, and an understanding of local conditions and trust of the community to set values. Sounds like a useful skill should the S HTF. As with all currency transactions, change will be needed. So, I also have a small stash of current coins. I do not doubt they will come in handy.

    1. Anony Mee – Ping tests via smartphone mike are accurate, so are ping tests by ear with experience. Diameter and thickness versus weight works reasonably well. And if you purchase bars in assay card there is a QR code on the back which scans you right into the mint where it was made. Then you scan the coin with your phone and certain concealed ID marks are plotted against the mint registration for a thumbs up or down on authenticity. Then there are always the Sigma Metalytics devices which make sense after awhile.

    2. The Fisch with the Ringer checks gold and silver coins.
      It is used by major banks, bullion dealers and investors.
      Checks the major gold & silver coins – Krugerrand, American Eagle, Maple Leaf, Philharmonic, American Buffalo, US $20, Sovereign, Mexican 50 Pesos, Silver American Eagle, Silver Maple Leaf, Silver Philharmonic, US Silver Dollar and more.
      ThefischDOTcom.

  11. Maxxon –

    You have 12 ounces of silver, this places you in the top 2% of the world for personal PM holdings. Congratulations. And don’t say you have no money, you just don’t have any fiat currency; you traded it for real money. Now keep stacking.

  12. Mrs. Alaskan will be happy to know that reading this blog has convinced me to spend more time with her panning this summer. I only wish that mosquitoes had some intrinsic value.

  13. Response to TKD and jade man: On collecting lead, copper and brass: Some are expert at collecting metals and they become expert at determination of purity. (Tmac and the “Ping Testing” of precious metals). Lead and brass are good to collect as a recycled item if one has access to a range where people shoot and leave stuff on/in the ground. Copper is more difficult to work with and I know of very few people that work with copper tubing to press their own finished bullets. I collect used brass in calibers I shoot. I am fortunate to be able to harvest lead from the range I practice at. I buy copper in the form of finished product in bullets I purchase to shoot downrange.
    With todays selection/offerings available from Sierra, Barnes, Hornady, Nosler, I have been happy with accuracy obtained from the current offerings of bullet manufacturers.

  14. I saw a story in the news, years ago. Some guy bought a huge amount of silver and had it stashed in his basement. A couple thugs with guns busted in and took it all. Might be an idea to buy from multiple dealers and/or buy anonymously? Make sure you’re not followed home. Same goes for the ATM. That’s called “jugging.” They watch for people leaving the ATM with big wads of cash in their hands. Also, going home from the shooting range, make sure some low-life isn’t following you home with the idea of stealing your guns.

  15. A observation or two. Should economic conditions deteriorate to the point that using silver coins (or gold) is necessary to purchase the things you need, how much silver (or gold) should you have on hand just to make it through a year? I doubt that a bag of old dimes or a few ounces of one silver coin or another will get anyone through. (You wouldn’t just have one box of ammo, would you?) I sense many believe having a little ‘jingle’ is enough. Its not. Reality bites.

    1. @ Whydah.
      “Should economic conditions deteriorate to the point that using silver coins (or gold) is necessary to purchase the things you need, how much silver (or gold) should you have on hand just to make it through a year?”

      Good question. Also who and what entity is going to determine pm value? Can I buy a can of soup for a silver dime? I bet a box of ammo would cost more. My guess is the black market would have a lot to say concerning the value of pm’s. Perhaps a semi – barter system would be in place.

  16. I have a fair amount of silver and around 6 troy ozs of 9999 gold brought over many years all now worth twice what I paid for it . I can no longer afford to buy silver (20 percent vat and large premiums ) ,the VAT should be a one off charge on new coins but is charge every time coins are sold ! One day i hope to be able to buy a plot of land with the profit from my pms but my daughter will probably inherit the lot lol .

  17. In a general breakdown of Society, wherein the value of currency drops to zero and government of whole territories ceases to exist, or fragments into city states and village chiefdoms…the SELLER of an item determines the value of that item…and the value of what is offered, by a buyer, in exchange for that item.

    There shall simply not be a “standard” value for anything….not identical items offered for sale/trade & not the value placed upon anything, one might wish to exchange for those items.

    In the absence of FORCE, you will only have FREE TRADE between parties, each of which will determine their OWN values, making most all transactions UNIQUE to only those directly involved.

    A dime might buy a bushel of apples, or a handful of uncooked rice, or a button for your coat….or nothing at all.

    Forget the advent of ANY SYSTEM…as any system requires what has just vanished in the chaos, causing the need to barter, or trade….an effective governing force. Any local governing force need not be in any agreement with any other governing force…nor be equal in any fashion, or standards.

    You are only KING within the reach of your arm, the arch of your sword, or the range of your firearm.

    When government breaks down and chaos reigns….the weak perish and only the strong rule.

  18. they will cast their silver into the streets .sound familiar . scripture ? the reason silver is of any value is utilitarian i.e electronics ,batteries ,solar panels . gold is money . the only practical reason to own silver is for anti viral properties . colloidal silver . learn how to make it , keep a little silver for that and convert the rest to gold . the silver needs to be .9999 fine as in canadian silver maples or 12 gauge wire .9999

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