Yes, I remember that well, I still am amazed how we were able to pick up strikes on eBay for under $8 a piece. Good times for those of us who bought, bad times for those that had to sell. But, I think barring an all out collapse of the silver market, there will be buyers at $10 for all the old .999 strikes. A lot of people were able to "melt" out and still do okay because in many cases they acquired the strikes at the right price. I remember well days at The Palms where $100 in would yield 15 or more strikes, all .999 So even if I would have melted out at $8 or $9 a piece, I would not have been hurt too bad. But there are a lot of new collectors who never got to take advantage of sub $10 prices on their strikes and have been buying at $15-25 for the last couple years. I doubt that many of them would liquidate at under $10 a piece unless their finances were in dire straights.

I think one of the things that has changed the dynamics a little is the strong interest in the new colorized series of clad strikes. Look at all the colorized clads selling for over $30 each. Many are selling for more than common .999 strikes. Hopefully the new batch of collectors, and some of the old strikers have raised the bar a bit and will be willing to support prices a little higher than the old days.

By the way... nice to see some discussions going on her again. The board was pretty quiet there for a while.