Coins and Currency Weekly
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Coins and Currency Weekly(c) is Published by Alan Cohen 
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January 24, 1999
Issue #10

The Delaware Quarter is here

Welcome to the first issue in quite a few weeks. Holiday travel and 
a busy schedule have prevented me from writing this newsletter on 
a more regular basis, but I hope that will change.

The first of the year brought the first numismatic change in the 
US in many years. The Delaware state quarters were released to 
the public. If you are wondering what I am talking about, the 
quarter as you know it will be taking a break for ten years. 
Over the next ten years, at a rate of about every 10 weeks, a 
new quarter will be issued commemorating each of the 50 states. 
In many places, the new quarter is not yet in circulation. It may 
not circulate in all areas for another month or two. However, at 
the recent FUN (Florida United Numismatists) show in Orlando, Florida, 
these quarters were easily found at the show, and even in the local 
shops. It was exciting to see one of these coins in person for the 
first time, after following the development of the program for a 
couple of years.

There are a couple of good places to look on-line to find out more 
information about these coins. The first is at the US Mint web site: 
http://www.usmint.gov/50states/index.cfm

The second is a web site that Coin World Magazine has started, which 
is: http://www.statequarters.com/ - This web site is currently under 
construction, but it will have a collector trading room where you 
can trade different coins.

Price of Silver

The price of silver rose over $7 per ounce in 1998, but is currently 
a little over $5 right now. Usually, silver bullion coins, or "junk 
silver" (Coins which have silver in them, but are worth no more than 
melt value of silver) are valued around the same price as melt value, 
give or take a small percentage. However, this is not currently the 
case, and fear of the Y2K bug have driven up the price of junk silver 
coins to a very healthy premium over melt value. People must figure 
that having something made up of a "precious metal" might be useful 
in a worst case scenario. With the current price of silver, one would 
expect a $1000 bag of silver dimes and quarters to sell for well under 
$4,000 - After all, there is about .714 ounces of silver in $1 worth 
of change, and at $5.10 per ounce, that figure comes to about $3641. 
After browsing some quotes on-line, I find the sell price to be more 
like $5400, and the buy price at $4700. After doing the math, that is 
a buy price of about $6.60 per ounce (29% over melt value) and a sell 
price of $7.56 per ounce (48% over melt value) - That is quite a premium. 
I expect this premium to stay high throughout 1999, and most likely will 
come down considerably next year. 

Until Next Time,

Alan Cohen

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Coins and Currency Weekly(c) (CCW) is published by Alan Cohen. 
It is a weekly newsletter devoted to coins and currency - Current news,
viewpoints, and other collecting information. 

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