I was curious of how many cointalk member's (or your parents) hoarded silver coinage back in 1964? How quickly did it dissapear from circulation? How much were you able to snag? Do you or your relatives still have it or has it all been sold?Unfortunatley my parents and grandparents never thought to do so, and now they wish they did. My grandparents have small collection of older us coins in a folder, but not a hoard of junk silver.*
None of my family saved pre-1965 coinage specifically. My grandfather had a small pile of Morgans and a few pre-1965 mint sets that he had collected over the years, but no circulated pre-1965 halves, quarters or dimes. I think for many people, there wasn't much incentive to do so as the price of silver was right about face value. (In 1964, silver was at $1.29 per ounce) Of course there's a lot of interest in them now that silver is at $32. But when you look at inflation, $1 in 1964 was about the same as $7.30 today. Outside of the spike in the early '80s, it's only been in the past few years that a person who had collected pre-1964 silver would have came out ahead of inflation.
My grandfather didn't believe in paper money, he was born in 1891 and never trusted paper. When he was in his late 80's he came to move in with us and my dad asked me if I wanted to buy some of the coins out of the safe my grandfather kept to put into my collection. I was about 11-12 or so and said not many because I didn't have a whole lot of money. Of course they were all silver coins, dimes, quarters, lots of halves and Morgans and Peace. I did buy a few of the oldest coins and put them in my Whitman. Glad I chanced on picking out the 1909-O half, at the time it was only worth the silver value - now it has appreciated considerably. So what happened to the rest of the coins, the ones I didn't buy you ask. Well after we left and went home my aunt got into the safe and cashed the whole lot, several thousand dollars worth at the bank.
My grandmother has a large coffee can, 2 lb size, of Mercs that my granfather would save out of his pocket change. I have never actually seen it but my mom tells me that it is in the safe and hasn't been gone through. According to my mom it is full. I told her she needs to look through it as some of the dates bring substantial money. She had no idea of what silver goes for.
Wow 2 pounds of mercury dimes? With that many unsearched dimes hopefully there will be some key dates in there
The coffee that was originally in the can weighed 2 lbs. The dimes likely weigh around 10 lbs or more. :yes:
My mother in law worked as a grocery clerk part time in the 80's and filled a large crown royal bag with silver coins that would come in. They had it sitting in a random drawer until recently putting it in a safe deposit box. She knew I liked coins and asked where silver was at, kinda still thought it was around 5 bucks an oz.
My grandparents were so poor they never even got any money to save. My Grandpa got a silver dollar and a apple for Christmas one year when he was young, and I still have that silver dollar today.
Well in 72 the us mint put a ton of silver coins they hoarded in to circulation again, to raise the dollars value
