Q&A for How to Melt Silver Coins

Pure silver melts at a temperature of 1,761 degrees F. Your oven's not hitting that...

Despite rumors to the contrary, it is not illegal to melt U.S. silver coinage for its metal value. It was illegal from 1967 to 1969 to do so, during which time the government recalled as much silver coinage from circulation as it could.

It will still be 40% silver, as you are not removing any of the other materials from the coin. You will need to bring chemistry into this equation, which is hard to do with the availability of the required materials.

It depends on the metals. If you're talking a 90% US silver coin (such as a pre-1964 half dollar or quarter dollar), you would need to utilize chemistry. The easiest way would be to dissolve the coin in nitric acid, then add copper until the silver drops out of solution. The trouble with that is, it's extremely inefficient, won't get you above 99% purity (not even 'Three Nines'), nitric is extremely hard to get a hold of if you're not a business with a need (due to terrorism concerns), and even if you can get it, nitric acid is extremely expensive to transport.

Defacing US currency and selling it is illegal if you're doing it in large amounts. You technically could sell it to anyone who is willing to purchase silver, but I wouldn't recommend it.

No, it is completely legal in the US to do this. Check with local laws in other countries.

Technically no, maybe a few of the silver or other metals may "burn" away or if not done properly you could potentially end up with slag build up which would be the metals oxidizing essentially becoming waste. But in general usually no, it will still be 99.99% or very close.