I was around during the last great silver/gold rush. My parents owned a coin shop at the time and it was an extremely turbulent time when you were behind the counter.

You didn't have time to actually do what you were there for--Deal in coins! You were essentially a bullion depository. There were people lined up going out the door and down the street carrying everything with them from coins to jewelery to silverware to anything else they even thought might contain silver or gold and this was all day long from the time the doors opened to the time you locked the doors and refused to let anyone else in! You were so busy that you couldn't take the time to go through sets to remove the collectible coins. Everything went in the same container and went to the smelter! I remember seeing 1932-D and 1932-S Washingtons go to get melted down. I was young and not directly involved with the buying and selling so that was how I got my first key date Washingtons. They were low grade but I bought them from my parents for the price of silver at the time. It's truly a terrifying thought to even think of seeing that happen again because the very same things will happen all over again. I have a roll of uncirculated 1963 Franklins and with the price of silver right now they have been reduced to having little to no collectible value. They are basically worth their bullion value. Common date, lower grade gold coins (AU or lower) have been on the brink for a long time and if you really pay attention to the mintages on some of those gold coins you will find out that some of the common dates are not really so common after all! Those are the type of coins that will ultimately end up going to the smelters---or worse---there will unquestionably be some coins that have a "true" numistmatic value going along with them. That is assuming that any coin can be considered as having "zero" numistmatic value. Personally I don't subscribe to this idea myself but there are many that do. I've seen it happen once. I have no doubts that it will happen again. The combination of the poor economy, high inflation, world unrest, and the unusually high price of silver and gold will bring this stuff out of the wood works and the majority of it will be lost forever!

It was a sad time for our beloved hobby and will be even more sad if or when it happens again. If you pay attention to what your local coin shop is buying from "walkin" sellers and what they are doing with it, you will see that it's already begun..............

Mike