By the way, silver never officially hit $50 in late April, 2011- it got up to about $49.86ish late on a Sunday night, but never punched through $50. It did punch through the $50 level in January, 1980.

RE: selling silver there are several things to consider. If a dealer (or person for that matter) senses that you don't know what you are doing, it is human nature that they might try to take advantage of you. They might call the coins "slicks" (heavily worn coins like the Walking Liberties might be). They might say they have been cleaned improperly and would be hard to sell, etc. One thing you might try to do is to go to a coin show in your area that has at least three dealers willing to pay cash for silver. That shouldn't be hard to do in most parts of the U.S. Then go to each dealer. Tell them you are shopping for the best deal and don't tell them the other person's prices. You should get a better deal this way. Also, a website with up-to-date silver pricing information is coininfo.com. You might want to also check to make sure that you don't have any rare or scarce dates such as all halves from 1921.