Would It Be Possible To Have Silver Circulation Coins Today?

For those who know their math better than I do...would this be possible to have a circulating 40% silver quarter or half dollar these days? Or maybe a dollar coin. Yes, I realize silver prices are low and could spike again but set that aside for now and thanks.

 

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Obviously the face value would have to be more than the melt value or else they wouldn't stay in circulation, right?

But how much more is the question I guess.

 

Silver may be low but it isn't that low. If they put, say, a Silver Eagle out in circulation for a buck they would be instantly hoarded. Even @ 40% it would be worth way more than a dollar. I am pretty sure a penny now is worth more than a penny but the value is so low that it isn't practical for most people to worry about it.

 

1000 times since it is going to the moon Although Mexico went from 80% - 10% over the years before they finally made the peso Cu-Ni. In the past 10 years a few countries have floated the idea hoping to attract investors away from the dollar, but never followed through, for good central bank reasons.

 

But, if you add silver to circulation wouldn't that lower the price?

 

Not if people hoard them; they wouldn't "stay" in circulation very long.

Just my opinion.

 

Unfortunately, we may be headed towards aluminum, iron ore, or whatever in coins for circulation, rather than any precious metals. There will never again in the foreseeable future be silver in a US coin for circulation.

 

Also how many people would really pull the silver out of cirrulation. Nearly anyone knows that copper pennies are worth more then face. I bet if you ask 100 Americans 10 of them still think coins are made out of silver.

 

A $20 40% silver coin may work.

 

Adding silver to circulation would not reduce demand. The price would still increase.

Chris

 

Only if silver becomes cheaper than paper.

 

There is always enough gold or silver to have a currency backed by such. The real reason gold and silver were thrown to the wayside is because bankers can't make as much profit on a gold and silver based money as a money that can be created out from paper and issued at will.

The U.S. economy was much stronger when the dollar was backed by gold, its no coincidence that since we have gone off of a gold backed dollar the economy has struggled mightily.

 

I challenge the claim that "the US economy was much stronger when the dollar was backed by gold".

First, it requires a definition of "stronger". You could claim that the US economy was "stronger" in the late 1800s than it is now, or you could claim that it was weaker; there's enough evidence in either direction that the argument would never end.

Second, you need to nail down what you mean by "backed by gold". Did that start in 1834, or 1900, or are you including the bi-metallic standard? Did it end in 1933, or in 1971?

Finally, "struggled mightily" is a meaningless term. "Mighty struggle" is kind of what a large economy is. Was the economy "struggling" in the glory days of the late 1990s? In the 1950s? Were the brutal depression of the early 1840s, or the Panic of 1857, or the Panic of 1884, or the Panic of 1893 (partly caused by a run on gold reserves), or any of the other panics, recessions and depressions of the period, somehow not "struggles"?

 

I'm looking at wages in real terms and GDP growth in real terms. Panics mean nothing to me as long as the economy was still growing at a fast rate over a decent sized sample (say 20 years).

 

The issue here could be that silver is not as hard wearing as alloy metals. A possible alternative could be a bi-metal coin where the centre part is silver, and the outer part is a tougher metal.

 

It doesn't take many.

How many times does a coin get spent during its lifespan? 1000? 100,000? More? Less?

Suppose that only one person in 100 is looking for "special" coins. (For silver, I imagine that estimate is conservative.) Thing is, it only takes one encounter between a coin and a silver-searcher to take that coin out of circulation. Within a very short time, the probability of that encounter approaches 1 (100% chance that the coin will be removed from circulation).

Thus, the Gresham's Law mentioned in my profile.

 

Uh oh, looks like there's a rumble going on. Didn't mean to start that.

 

That's the problem with asking questions: sometimes you get conflicting answers.