Questions on silver dates

I am new to coins and i know that post 1964 coins were not made wiyh silver accept for a few collectors coins but i was wondering if anyone can tell me specific dates of when coins were silver. I know all there is to know about half dollars because they are my focus but i was wondering when nickels dimes and wuarters were made with silver and when they stopped being made out of silver.

 

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For dimes & quarters any up to & including 1964 are 90% silver. Nickels contained 35% silver from 1942 thru 1945.

 

Thank you sooooo much. This helps a lot

 

not all 42 nickels are silver.

 

Let's not forget the 40% halves 1965-1970 (never found a 70-d in circulation)

 

how do you know if a post 64 coin is a silver collector coin

 

In summary:
Dollars: 1935 or earlier were silver. Most commemorative dollar coins are 90% silver as well (look at the edge of the coin....white is silver, copper is clad, or look it up online or ask here)

Halves: 1964 and older are 90%. 1965 - 1970 are 40% silver. Some modern commemorative coins are silver some are not (see above)

Quarters: 1964 and older are 90%

Dimes: 1964 and older are 90%

Nickels: some 1942 plus 1943 - 1945. You can tell the 1942s that are silver by looking for the large mint mark above monticello on the reverse.

Cents: Nope

 

And when you say clad, what do you mean?

 

Clad = Copper Nickel mix

You can either tell the silver halves, quarters, and dimes by their date, the edge (will look silver or green as opposed to gold/orange and silver) or by the tone when you drop it (not recommended for high grade coins.)

 

Also, you can have silver quarter dimes and halves in silver from silver proof sets from 1992 on. Not that you are likely to ever see one of those in circulation.

 

They are out there...I've gotten a silver 1995 S and 1993 S searching rolls. But yes, very, very rare (in rolls.)

 

Im a little confused. You say that nickels were only silver from 42 to 45 but i have a 1936 s buffalo nickel and i thought that it was silver? And then i was reading another post about coin roll searchers posting there results and a lot of them were nickel rolls and they were excited about finding pre 1960 nickels. Why would that be if they arent silver. I know about proofs and stuff but still they didnt say that the nickels were proofs or anything

 

Only wartime nickels '42-'45 have silver in them, all other nickels have no silver content. People are excited however to find any buffalo nickels in rolls.

 

I collect Jeffersons...and will pull anything older than 1960 out of a roll. I won't necessarily keep it all, though...

I'll usually keep anything with a lower mintage, anything that is higher grade, or any errors I come across. The rest I usually sell for 2-3x face value (and don't usually have a problem finding buyers. gboke is correct: only nickels made from '42-'45 (with the large mintmark above Monticello on the reverse) have silver content. I'll usually pull one or two silver nickels from a full box ($100 face) and will either get a Buffalo or a Liberty nickel per box. Never pulled a proof nickel from circulation - and I've searched over 100 boxes. I'll probably end up keeping (permantently) about ten total coins from a box.

 

OS, nickels are made of nickel (25% nickel and 75% copper). That is why they are called 'nickels'. This composition has been the same since nickels were introduced in 1866 - except 1942-1945. During WWII nickel was needed for the war effort and nickel was not available to the Mint for coins. So, during a portion of 1942 and all of 1943-1945, nickels were made of an alloy containing 35% silver.

All this information can be found in your Red Book. If you don't own a Red Book you should buy one.

 

They're called nickels for a reason. It's because they're made of nickel (mostly, there's copper in there too, 5% I think). The silver nickels were I think around a third (35%, isn't it?) silver, so probably shouldn't really be called nickels.

And people are excited about finding buffalo nicks or wheat cents in rolls because they're/we're coin collectors, not just bullion investors. Old coins are neat, especially in circulation. They have numismatic value (even if it's low).

 

Just so you've got it straight, there are not silver nickels in silver proof sets, or as you call them, collector coins.

 

Except 1942.

 

You should get yourself a copy of the Red Book of United States Coins by R. S. Yeoman. It provides the metal composition of every coin produced by the US Mint. There is a wealth of other information in this book, but don't rely on the price guides.

Chris

 

I think the easiest way for me to remeber dates coins were silver is to refer to this site here http://www.coinflation.com/silver_coin_values.html