1965 Washington Quarter with unusual ring

Discussion in 'Coin Chat' started by eric6794, Dec 23, 2015.

  1. Michael K

    Michael K Well-Known Member

    Silver quarters weigh 6.25 grams.
    Regular quarters weigh 5.67 grams.
    You will need a scale that goes at least to tenths, and preferably hundredths.
    And, if the edge shows any copper color, it is not silver.
    Please look at this photo:
    silverq.png
     
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  3. eric6794

    eric6794 Well-Known Member

    That actually explains what I was asking and makes sense..thanks.
     
  4. Corn Man

    Corn Man Well-Known Member

    Thread was made in 2015
     
  5. Michael K

    Michael K Well-Known Member

    There are more recent questions than 2015.
    That is who I am replying to.
     
  6. Andrew313

    Andrew313 New Member

    I’m glad this thread is still alive, I’ve come across many 1965 quarters that have made me question the metal composition, whether it be the ring it makes or the weight tolerance being higher (only speaking for quarters that have the copper edge). I say only for the quarters that have the copper edge because as everyone has stated above, it isn’t silver if you can see the copper edge. Well, let me share some information that might blow everyone’s mind. I have saved quite a few 1965’s that were “not normal” assuming something was off. And it always led me to think these few off minted quarters must have been produced during a “trial” run and that they probably tried a few different metal compositions to see which would bond the best. So, I took my 1965 quarters (that qualified for this experiment) to my local gold/silver dealer. In the past we have used his metal electronic reader (forgive me bc I don’t actually know what it exactly is) to test large silver bars among many other precious metals. Mind you, this machine is about the size of a washing machine and is extremely expensive. It would not compare to other electronic metal detectors found online. Given his vault is the size of my garage, and the fact he must verify the fineness of everything in his inventory, this was a small investment to ensure he doesn’t purchase or sell anything without knowing the exact metal composition. So here I come with my quarters (I brought 8) and I ask if we can check the metal compositions of each. I’ve purchased a lot of gold and silver from him over the years so he didn’t mind doing the test at all. Drum roll please. 6 out of the 8 contained 18% silver with 42% copper 38% nickel and 2% of various random
    metals. The other 2 of the 8 quarters contained 27% silver with 35% nickel and 38% copper along with a fraction of a percent of various metals. Mind you, all of the coins have the copper toned edge. If it weren’t for the ring test, I would have never gone this far to get to bottom of this. I hope I was able to help some of you guys out who were scratching your heads knowing something had to be “off”. Which it certainly was. Mind you these are 8 quarters out of the thousands of 1965 quarters I’ve come across over the years. IMO - in 1965 the mints were adjusting to the “no silver” switch resulting in many different % compositions of metal and apparently small traces of silver being left in the sheets of metal used for production.

    Cheers
     
  7. Andrew313

    Andrew313 New Member


    I’m glad this thread is still alive, I’ve come across many 1965 quarters that have made me question the metal composition, whether it be the ring it makes or the weight tolerance being higher (only speaking for quarters that have the copper edge). I say only for the quarters that have the copper edge because as everyone has stated above, it isn’t silver if you can see the copper edge. Well, let me share some information that might blow everyone’s mind. I have saved quite a few 1965’s that were “not normal” assuming something was off. And it always led me to think these few off minted quarters must have been produced during a “trial” run and that they probably tried a few different metal compositions to see which would bond the best. So, I took my 1965 quarters (that qualified for this experiment) to my local gold/silver dealer. In the past we have used his metal electronic reader (forgive me bc I don’t actually know what it exactly is) to test large silver bars among many other precious metals. Mind you, this machine is about the size of a washing machine and is extremely expensive. It would not compare to other electronic metal detectors found online. Given his vault is the size of my garage, and the fact he must verify the fineness of everything in his inventory, this was a small investment to ensure he doesn’t purchase or sell anything without knowing the exact metal composition. So here I come with my quarters (I brought 8) and I ask if we can check the metal compositions of each. I’ve purchased a lot of gold and silver from him over the years so he didn’t mind doing the test at all. Drum roll please. 6 out of the 8 contained 18% silver with 42% copper 38% nickel and 2% of various random
    metals. The other 2 of the 8 quarters contained 27% silver with 35% nickel and 38% copper along with a fraction of a percent of various metals. Mind you, all of the coins have the copper toned edge. If it weren’t for the ring test, I would have never gone this far to get to bottom of this. I hope I was able to help some of you guys out who were scratching your heads knowing something had to be “off”. Which it certainly was. Mind you these are 8 quarters out of the thousands of 1965 quarters I’ve come across over the years. IMO - in 1965 the mints were adjusting to the “no silver” switch resulting in many different % compositions of metal and apparently small traces of silver being left in the sheets of metal used for production.

    Cheers
     
    Mike Gomez likes this.
  8. Mike Gomez

    Mike Gomez New Member

    Another interesting thing is that I have a 1965 quarter that has a different ring and shine than other ordinary 1960’s quarter.

    in the picture, the quarter on the left is shinier and has a silver coin kind of ring. Whereas the one on the right is dull and sounds like a regular nickel clad quarter, yet the dull one on the left weighs 5.67 grams consistently and the one on the right weighs 5.76 consistently.

    I am new at this so if anyone can help clarify this for me I’d gladly appreciate it.

    I posted pics of both quarters together.
     

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