I bought these off eBay and they came in today. They are supposed to be uncirculated silver dollars. They appear to be sealed in the plastic from the mint and they also include the little blue tokens. But when I looked at them closely I could see crud on them. On the first picture you can see spots on Eisenhower's face, particular the cheek and under the eye. it is more noticeable in person than in the photo. On the second coin you'll see a big smudge of something right on the top of the "1" in 1972. Now I really don't care that much about the physical condition. I bought these at bullion price and I wanted them simply for bullion. However, I've never bought any silver IKEs before and these don't really look silver. When I take a clean silver coin such as a 1964 half-dollar or an ASE and compare, the IKE's look more of a copper-nickel color. If they were not sealed, I would expect a slight color change over time. However, I am thinking since they are sealed from the mint, they should still have their original color, right? Any suggestions for verifying if they are silver, short of opening them and putting an acid test on them? Actually I'm tempted to open them up anyway since if I buy any more of these I'll want to store them in a tube which takes up less space.
My understanding is that Ike Dollars between 1971-1976 from the San Francisco mint "S" are the only ones that are silver. Ebay'ers will put "silver" dollar in the title to mislead people.
But even the little blue token from the mint says "uncirculated silver dollar" so does that mean the government was also deceiving people?
The coins could have been uncirculated when they were placed into the government wrappers. All it takes is a few rubs of the plastic to scuff up the coin.
Those are definately (40%) silver. They came as you describe, in the blue envelopes from 1971 to 1974. I have bought many with spots or discoloration and they were still in the mint sealed plastic.
This is true for the uncirculated versions only, there are clad proofs with an S that are not silver.
They are only 40% silver so they will look different than a 90% half. Just look at the edge of the coin, if it doesn't have the copper ring it is 40%. And if it is still in the mint plastic it is unc.
When the mint describes them as uncirculated they are refering to the method of manufacture, as opposed to proofs, not the condition or grade. Uncirculateds are also sometimes referred to as business strikes.
I have several 40% half-dollars from 1965-1970 and they look exactly like the 90% half dollars except around the edges. I believe they actually take 2 plates of silver and mash them around a copper plate like an oreo-cookie so the outside still looks the same. Now, I have some 35% war-nickels which even after a good cleaning still look dull compared to other silver coins since they are actually an alloy all the way through. Are the 40% silver eisenhowers made this way?
I don't understand this statement. Every 40% silver cion I own is clad, and still has the layer of copper visible on the edges.
It's not deception at all. Since previous dollar coins contained silver, they were called silver dollars. When the Ikes were released, people continued calling them silver dollars, even though many of the Ikes had no silver in them.
Not quite! The years 1971-1974 were silver clad only. The Bicentennial Ike was made in, both, CuNi and silver clad. Chris
They look exactly as they should and are indeed 40% silver Ikes. However, there are two things you should be aware of. The first is that these are 80% silver on the outside with an inner core of 20.9% silver, which yields an overall composition of 40% silver. Additionally, few folks pay all that close to the melt value for 40% silver as opposed to 90% silver. This low percentage silver (40%) is favored by very few and is unattractive to the smelting process.
