how common are silver quarters in circulation?

I have 2 teenage boys who I've already threatened if they ever touch my paper currency or coin collection.

 

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Kenn, Put your coins and paper money under lock & key as we speak. Do not trust the kids for they will spend that as fast as you collect it! Regards, Pat

 

In the past year, I've found one silver dime and one silver quarter from pocket change. It is quite a few years since the last time I found any. Half dollars have been easier, but that seems to be drying up too.

 

In my own pocket change, I've found a single silver quarter (about 3 weeks ago) and 2 or 3 silver dimes; I've been searching for about 12 years now.

With roll searching, I've found one silver quarter and maybe 5 or 6 silver dimes.

I made out best by far working as a Cashier at a local Genuardi's (grocery store). They had very easy to check change dispensers; all I needed was the key to open them. I was nearly fired a few times for searching through them, but meh. I worked there for about two years, and over that time I've found:

- 94 silver dimes, 3 Mercuries
- 2 Buffalo nickels, one dateless
- 6 Silver war nickels
- Countless Wheat pennies, including a 1909-VDB and a 1943-S
- 5 40% silver half dollars (I was only paid with about 40 half dollars total; this silver / clad ratio was pretty good )
- 8 silver quarters; most were 1964

That may sound like a good number of of silver quarters, but when it comes to the number of them I looked at, we're probably talking > 100000 quarters over the two years (they used up the most space in the change dispensers, so there were by far the most of them to look through).

To answer your question, there are still amazingly some silver quarters out there, but of silver nickels, dimes, quarters and half dollars, I'd say the quarters are the rarest.

 

I agree , the only silver I 've found are halves and 2 war nickles .
rzage:thumb:

 

Well, the only Silver Quarter I have ever "found" was about 5 years ago. I was down at a park in my town that used to be a swimming hole up until the 50's and I was hitting some golf balls around with my pitching wedge. Well, I hit one shot and from under the divet I took out of the ground up flys a 1943 quarter. So i'm gonna say your odds of finding a silver quarter in circulation are about as good as me ever finding one again. :goofer: I was also a retail manager for 5 years and never found one in all the deposits I handled.

 

Remember, they stopped making 1964 quarters in 1966, by then, they were going directly from the mint to the horders. While silver dimes for some reason stayed in circulation for another decade or more (I got an entire [almost] Roosevelt silver set out of my change in the early 70s), quarters went out of circulation by the beginning of 1968.

That was 41 years ago. I read somewhere that coins are supposed to last about 30 years, which means that almost all the 1965-67 coins should be gone. That's clad.

 

Here is my lifetime of silver circulation finds. The nickels and halves are all from Vegas (back when the slot machines still took coins).

 

I have found two silver quarters in 20 years. A 1942 and 1959. The '59 was like AU.

 

I found one silver quarter in a roll last month.. a 1944 that had the weirdest toning spots on the obverse. The toning spots are spaced out like numbers on a clock and it's really ugly as sin.

Also, at work, somebody was having trouble getting a quarter to go through the pop machine. I traded him quarters, and then saw later that it was a 1963. And I think out of the same machine, I also got a 1960 silver dime about two months ago.

 

I haven't seen a silver quarter in circulation for more than 10 years.

 

I've never gotten a silver quarter in change, ever, never seen one in a roll either.
Silver dimes, only a few times, and silver war nickels, once or twice.

 

I found a mercury dime once in a self checkout machine at Home Depot. I figure the guy looked at it and didn't know what it was LOL. If you find them and they are in nice condition someone's coin collection got ripped off!

 

Of recent at my local laundry mat I found 6 silver quarters after putting 40 dollars in the change machine. The attendant told me the owner recycles the quarters back into the machine from their washer and dryers. So I'm sure that there are more in there.As a cashier 2 years ago I found one '64 dime and one(don't remember the year) merc dime. About three war nickels and a '68s proof like cent. That was a business where people frequently brought change to pay for their entire purchase. Bad part of town.

 

In the last ten years,I have not seen a single silver quarter in change. I have seen a few silver nickels and one dime.

 

I was taking the change out of my pockets a couple of days ago, and saw a quarter that didn't look like the rest. It was a 1954-P, the first I've gotten in change for more than two decades. I love face-value collectables.

 

So far this year I have found 4 silver quarters. One from searching bags from the bank and three from customers at the grocery store I work at.

 

I got one today in change at the gas station! My first one pulled from circulation. 1964D

 

'bout as common as hens teeth, but, my daughter did pull one from circulation last week.....

 

Picked up a 53d dime at the hospital yesterday. Occasionally get a silver nickel. Prob from kids in their grand parents collections