I am debating going through rolls of loonies, looking for silver dollars. I assume the chances are low, but has anyone ever gotten one? I have never seen one.
Since loonies are about 26mm and silver dollars are about 38mm - I rather doubt you would find them mixed in rolls with each other.
In the US, the way I find Eisenhower Dollars is I start with the yellow pages and call every bank (let me repeat EVERY BANK). Sometimes one or two will actually have some and I'll go pick them up. Now if the coins you are referring to are actually Silver (as in Ag), then I'm guessing your more likely to get zip, but wouldn't hurt to call around as there are plenty of banks that are clueless about the value of silver.
Even if he called every bank the country I doubt he is going to find any US dollars, silver or otherwise - he lives in Canada.
You never know what you'll find in bank rolls. I got a SBA dollar in a roll of halves I got from a bank. Of course being in Canada reduces the chances of finding American dollars. Bruce
Finding an Eisenhower the easy way, too easy I happened to be in the bank branch I use regularly. I asked for Sacagawea dollars. They said they didn't have any, but offered me the one dollar coin they had: an Eisenhower. I declined it. Was this stupid of me? Are all Eisenhowers pure silver? How much are they worth? These Eisenhower things were around before I was born, so I know nothing, other than their diameter.
Only the S mint (proof) Eisenhower dollars are silver, as I remember it. The others are clad 'sandwiches', like the rest of our pseudo-silver coins. They are generally not worth more than $1 in most cases, and even the BU ones are probably only worth an extra quarter at best. The coins to look for are Morgan dollars and Peace dollars (as the older dollar coins are most likely not going to be found in circulation), which are silver. Of course there are silver S-mint Ikes out there like I said, but they would be harder to find than regular silver dollars anyway. Also, for the record, the coins that are silver are only 90% silver, with the other 10% being small amounts of copper, mainly to stabilize the coin, as silver (as well as gold coins, which I believe are 97% solid gold) is a rather soft metal. I would have taken the Ike, simply for curiosity value, because I don't have many, but you didn't lose anything financially by not taking the coin.
Thanks for the info Thank you H for getting back to me! Yeah, I didn't really mean 100% by 'pure': I meant high 90's; I was just too lazy to reach up for the '5' while holding [Shift]. I don't imagine the US has ever made 100% gold or silver BUSINESS strikes. Am I right in guessing this? I found this cool website http://www.coinflation.com (love the name). At first I thought it said the copper and nickel in Eisenhowers was worth $2.11 melt, but then I realized it says '$0.21'. Anyway, cool sight, and thanks for the info.
1. I thought the OP was talking about silver canadian dollars. I don't know enough about canadian coins to know whether there is such a thing. 2. The S mint IKES came in both copper clad and 40% silver clad varieties. You can tell by the edge which variety it is. Furthermore, 1973 IKES were not issued for circulation so having either the philly or denver from that year is also nice. I don't think the IKES ever came in 90% Ag. 3. Everyone loves getting Peace or Morgan dollars at face value.
