I have a couple of them I use here in San Diego, that both sell fine
silver and fine gold.
When you inquire about buying silver or gold from them, tell them
you’re using it to make jewelry out of, and not for “speculation”.
You certainly don’t care about the numismatic value of the coins they
sell you, but just the raw metal weight. They may have silver bought
from customers, or coins that have been slightly damaged to sell you.
My fine silver may be in coin or small ingot form, may look like it’s
pretty well used, or even freshly minted, but I don’t pay a “minting
fee”, just the bare-bones spot silver price plus a small fee. They
will charge you a slight charge over the “spot” price of the metals
market, but it is small compared to buying from a refiner, and paying
postage, insurance, etc.
I buy my pure gold and pure silver from a local coin shop, and alloy
my own sterling as well as 18K or 14K gold with palladium (for white
gold) or rose or yellow gold with alloys I buy from David Fell Co.
here in Ca., or United Metals in NY. I am a huge fan of the S57NA
sterling alloy United makes, and almost all my students now make
their sterling stock out of the S57NA alloy and pure silver from the
coin shop.
Its dead easy to do if you have an alloy chart and an accurate
scale, and I really don’t know how much cheaper you can go for fresh
metals with great working characteristics and colors.
Jay Whaley