I have this Monday off from work, so I decided to do some cleaning. In the process of cleaning I found a 1971 Ike on closet shelf. My question to everyone is if this coin contains silver. There isn't a mintmark. Thanks for any info you can provide.
If you have scale you can weigh it to see what the metal content is... a clad copper/nickel Ike will weight about 22 grams and a silver Ike will weigh about 24 grams. I do this with every Ike I come across just to be sure If you find a 1973 Ike be sure to let me know!
I don't have a scale but there appears to be a copper layer when I look the edge of the coin. would the lack of mintmark help determine it's composition. Is the 1973 Ike a rare date?
The mint mark won't tell you much with the Eisenhower, even some of the "S" mint marks on them aren't silver (according to a quick search on Google). If you see copper then it's likely not silver. There were only about 4 million 1973 Ikes made into circulation so yup it's pretty rare! It's on my list of coins to hunt down and collect
If it's a 1971 Ike with no mint mark then it's Cu/Ni Clad. All "S" mint marked Ike's in 1971 and 1972 were silver. There is always the 1 in-a 1,000,000 shot it's an error.....but I wouldn't count on it or buy a scale to check. FWIW, and to educate anyone looking at Ike's, the only Copper/Nickel "S" mint Ike's were mint Proof coins (in the mint proof sets) from 1973-1978. It's VERY easy to tell if they are Cu/Ni by the band of copper around the edge. There were NO silver Ike's minted in 1977-1978. And all the Silver Proofs from 1971-1974 were in the Brown mint Boxes by themselves. The "business" struck silver Ike's were in the blue mint envelopes w/ an "S" mint mark. The 1976's were a little more complicated.
It is definitely NOT rare, but all of the Ikes are picking up on collector interest. The "silver" ones, with 40% silver are the 1971s-1974s mint ones. In high condition, they are worth something.
Yeah 4 million isn't rare. And you're off on that. Zero were intended for circulation, though undoubtedly a few have been circulated. 1973 Ikes are NIFC - they were in mint sets only.
