how much is junk silver worth today

[LaMaggie]

Ah, the million-dollar question about your grandpa's old change jar! Or, more accurately, the constantly-fluctuating-silver-spot-price question. Calling it "junk" silver is a bit of a misnomer, isn't it? One person's junk is another's precious metal, after all.

The provided context cleverly points us to the right places—dealers who sell this stuff—but alas, they don't give us a hard number. That's because asking for the price of junk silver is like asking for the price of gasoline; it changes every single day. Its value is tied directly to the live spot price of silver, which is about as stable as a unicyclist on a tightrope.

Here's the gist of it. The value of junk silver isn't its face value (a 1964 dime is worth a lot more than ten cents), but its silver content. For the most common U.S. 90% silver coins made before 1965, a bag with a $1 face value (say, ten dimes or four quarters) contains about 0.715 troy ounces of pure silver.

To get a rough idea of its worth, you'd multiply 0.715 by the current spot price of silver. You can find that price on any financial news site. Dealers will then typically pay a little under that melt value and sell it for a little over. For the most accurate, up-to-the-second valuation for your specific coins, your best bet is to search for a "junk silver calculator" online and plug in the numbers. Happy hunting