Anyone EVER watch Pawn stars?

[Art_from_Ark]

42. Checking on buy prices in a leading numismatic newspaper,

Coin World, I see that there is at least one long-time advertiser who is offering $22 and up for run-of-the-mill Morgan dollars, which is around $5.50 higher than the metal content. In other words, that $22 can be considered to be the wholesale price of generic Morgan dollars in average (not uncirculated) condition. So it makes absolutely no sense, from a legitimate business perspective, for a dealer to send off Morgan dollars to be melted into silver bars or whatever, since they would only be worth about $16.50 (theoretically) as a bar of silver (but actually less than that since they would have to refined from .900 to .999 fine to make them attractive to investors).

Another thing that really caught my attention was this excerpt from a Daily Mail article:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2579469/Meltdown-pawn-shop-reality-television-star-tell-customer-sorry-turned-coin-collection-gold.html

Silver & Gold's spokesperson, Laura Herlovich said coins are usually in plastic cases with a value already assigned to them by an expert.

She added: 'If the grader is not someone we trust, the cases are cracked open and the coins are sent out to be melted down.

'That was the case here. I don't know for sure, but I believe a majority were melted down. They weren't worth what he [Walters] thought they were worth.'

That is either the stupidest business practice imaginable, or there is something else going on there.

First of all, I have no idea what their spokesperson means when she says that "coins are usually in plastic cases with a value already assigned to them by an expert", but it sounds like BS to me since she seems to be talking about grading company "slabs" which never come with a "value" assigned by an expert, only a grade. Giving a coin a "death sentence" merely because it's in the "wrong" type of holder is either idiotic, or...

There are two so-called "first tier" coin grading companies in the US-- NGC, and PCGS. There is also a "second tier" company called ANACS. All of those companies grade and "slab" coins in hard plastic holders that have traceable numbers.

There are also various "third tier" grading companies that don't command much respect in the numismatic community, but that's usually because they tend to overgrade coins. The vast majority of coins in their holders are genuine, but improperly graded to try to make them seem more valuable than they actually are. While it might make sense to crack a coin like that out of its "case" (slab), sending it off immediately to the smelter is stupid. If there is a question about its authenticity, why buy it in the first place? And if, for example, it's a real silver dollar, it's worth more in coin form than in melted, generic silver form.