''I was part of it,'' he said, ''so I can't point the finger at anybody else. He estimated that during 19, Silver Towne processed ''thousands of bags'' of silver coins destined for refiners' melting pots. He bought huge quantities of silver coins from customers and sold them, in turn, to refiners. Hendrickson himself was deeply involved in the silver melts. And that's the way it is with the coin market, too, I'm afraid.'' After he had his great fall, all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put him back together again. ''Unfortunately, you can't do things over,'' he added.
''They destroyed a lot of our 'seed coins' - the coins that got people started - and put a lot of collectors out of business. Hendrickson, proprietor of Silver Towne in Winchester, Ind., one of the nation's largest coin dealerships. ''Those coin melts probably hurt us more than we'll ever know,'' said Leon E. They outlined their concerns in recent interviews.
The future course of the hobby - for better or worse - has been altered permanently.Ī number of observers fear that the change has been for the worse. Nonetheless, the shape of the coin market has been changed dramatically by the earlier melts. In recent weeks, it has hovered between $6 and $7 an ounce and the melts have been reduced to a virtual standstill. The value of silver has plummeted since then. Even scarcer items could be melted at a profit. At that point, common-date silver coins were worth far more as metal than as money or collectibles. Most of the melting took place in 19, when silver bullion soared to an all-time high of $50 an ounce.
Millions of coins have been melted for recapture of their metal and the impact on coin collecting is likely to be enormous. In years to come, however, the value of silver United States coins may hinge on how many were lost. The value of a coin is normally based on how many were made.