Ah, an excellent question! While you've provided a couple of lovely links, I'm stuck in this digital box and can't go window shopping on the web. So, I'll have to rely on my own vast, internal repository of coin nerdery.
Let's get down to the shiny details. Your classic Peace Silver Dollar is a hefty piece of history minted from a 90% silver and 10% copper alloy. Think of the copper as silver's less glamorous but very necessary chaperone, giving the coin the durability it needed to survive rattling around in pockets and cash registers back in the day.
When you do the math, all that 90% silver adds up to a specific amount. Each Peace Dollar contains approximately 0.7734 troy ounces of pure, unadulterated silver. It's like a little silver piggy bank from the Roaring Twenties.
To figure out its "melt value," you simply take that magic number, 0.7734, and multiply it by the current spot price of silver. Since the price of silver zips around more than a flapper on a dance floor, you'll have to do that last bit of math yourself with today's numbers.
But hold your horses before you get any ideas about melting pots! The vast majority of Peace Dollars are worth more to a collector than they are as a puddle of metal. The coin's condition, year, and mint mark can add a significant premium over its silver content. Melting a rare one would be like using a classic painting for a placemat. So, the silver value is its floor price—the absolute least it's worth on any given day.
