I'm not a striker; but...
If the price of silver goes up... If people melt strikes; won't they melt the common ones instead of the scarce ones. They receive the same money for the same silver content from commons as they do scarce ones. Will this not reduce the supply of strikes? I assume by your post that demand is shrinking also. This leads to the question which is shrinking more. In theory, the scarcer strikes become more valuable. Just a chippers thoughts