What percent of spot can you expect when selling to a coin store (general rule)

I tried to see what I could get for a bit of “junk silver” more to get a handle of buying and selling. They offered me “80%” of spot and and considered all 10 1967 quarters and dimes as 50% though I asked them to test it first. The way they approached everything was odd and I ended up walking out after selling nothing. I was trying some 50%, 80% and 90% and 92.5%. I figured out they were considering the 80, 90 and 92.5 as 50% as well later on. How do I avoid this and find a good place if I ever seriously want to liquidate? 

Probably largely dependent on the size/ or the turnover of the shop. In the US they often buy like 18 times FV and sell for 21 times for US silver coins with little to no numismatic value. If you have really only junk worth the metal they can only sell for little over melt they will buy it at maybe 90-95% BV.

The easier a shop can get rid of the stuff you want to sell the better the price you are most likely to get.

Firstly, you should point out that you are specifically referring to Canadian type silver coins of different silver purity of 50%  or 80%. You should expect to realize 80% - 90% of actual silver content melt value of the coin, whatever the purity. Sounds like they did not want to go through them and simply lowballed everything to look out for their interests and not yours. Bulk buyers do these things routinely. Try other coins dealers or a pawn shop. Almost no one pays spot as melting and refining silver is an expense as well. Junk silver is junk silver whether it is a coin or grandmas silverware. It is looked at as a commodity and nothing more than actual silver content. .500 silver will not realize as much as .800 silver.

About 3 years ago I took my junk silver (Canadian) to a jewelry store.  I had a spread sheet of each denomination by silver content and totalled by “spot price” .  They gave me 80%, which is what I expected.

AFAIK, if you're selling non-junk bullion you can expect at least spot or even a bit higher if it's a nice piece. At least that's what the one coin dealer near me said. 

So as a general rule, selling junk silver is not the same as “selling to a coin store.”

At least in the US, ‘67 CAN silver is considered .500, which you could test but… who wants to do that. As everyone is saying here, try other shops and see what they offer you. Typical payout is 85% of spot value, but there are coin shops that will (for US .900 silver at least) pay 10x face despite others paying the full 18x. Non US silver is typically 60-80% from what I've seen. Large silver coins always pay better, small or low silver content pay less; some even throw it with pound coinage and weigh it with the rest. A shop I frequent sends his silver to get melted and will have me pull anything that would demand a premium - and lets me trade with junk silver 1x1 for my collection. Anything else he puts aside to sell.

Rajbarage

I tried to see what I could get for a bit of “junk silver” more to get a handle of buying and selling. They offered me “80%” of spot and and considered all 10 1967 quarters and dimes as 50% though I asked them to test it first. The way they approached everything was odd and I ended up walking out after selling nothing. I was trying some 50%, 80% and 90% and 92.5%. I figured out they were considering the 80, 90 and 92.5 as 50% as well later on. How do I avoid this and find a good place if I ever seriously want to liquidate? 

I realise now that my post was rather uninformative when it comes to what I trying to sell. I apologize for that. I was trying to sell five junky 80% halves, five 1967 quarters, five 1967 dimes, and three other dimes, one sterling and two 80%. The spot price in CAD was around 29 dollars at the time and I got offered a total of 35.20 for all of them. Today, it is about 50 cents lower but going by the price today, this is the math I came up with: 

Junky half dollars: 5 X ((8.47)(0.8)) = 33.88

Quarters: 5 X ((2.65)(0.8)) = 10.6

Dimes: 5 X ((1.06)(0.8)) = 4.24

Dimes: 2 x ((1.69)(0.8)) = 2.71

Dimes: 1 X ((2.02)(0.8)) = 1.62

Total: $ 53.05 (Canadian)

So, yeah, I guess he had lowballed me? Either way, this last reply was to clear what I had originally stated in my comment, that looking back was a bit unclear. Thanks for all your input. 

What you described is a pretty common “bulk lowball” tactic: they simplify everything into the lowest purity bucket so they don’t have to sort/test, and it protects their margin.

A few ways to avoid it next time:
- Go in with a simple list (coin type + purity + total ASW) and ask them to quote “% of melt” for each purity group.
- Keep purities separated in bags (50%, 80%, 90%, sterling, etc.) so they can’t claim it’s all mixed.
- Get 2–3 quotes. Some shops price fairly, others are basically “we buy everything as the worst case”.
- If they refuse to test or won’t explain the calculation, that’s usually your signal to walk.

I also like to sanity-check the melt baseline before I go in, so I can immediately tell if an offer is 60% vs 90% of melt. A quick calculator makes that easier (same idea whether it’s silver or gold): a simple melt-value calculator.
https://mygoldcalc.com/scrap-gold-calculator