I pulled the quote below out of a different thread. I've never seen a 40% that did not stick out like a sore thumb. can they be missed if you rim search your rolls? Feels like a stupid question as I type it. I know a 40%er when i see one!! Still curious how you feel about that comment though.
Easy enough to miss if you're not careful. I've seen a few (Maybe a dozen or so) that I would have missed if they didn't hit the light right or if I didn't hear them.
At the bank today a teller had 2 halves, 1 clad and the other 40%. The clad was above the silver half. I was several feet away from the tray but there was no doubt that there was a silver coin under the clad. The edge was so bright and silver-like that I thought it was possibly 90% until I bought it and saw the coin upclose. I think it may have to do with variation of the mixes that were used in the 1960s which has resulted in some 40% halves being darker than others in the edges. Light reflection may also have an impact on how well a 40% can be differentiated from a clad by looking at the edge.
I have a half-dozen 40%ers that I have pulled from circulation thus far. Most of them are white on the edges, but just slightly darker than, say a 64 or earlier. However, there is one 67 that I have that is clearly two-toned on the edge. It is not a copper-nickel color sandwich, but more of a white-dark white almost grey or smokey. I almost passed it up until I decided to look at the face. It was a dirty Kennedy half, but sure enough it said 1967.
i can usually pick out the 40%ers but my last box i date checked them and found another 40% that looked exactly like a circulated clad half.. so from now on i will definitely be date checking half dollars... i am still wondering tho why does it look clad i know that 40% is silver so is there still copper? i'm fairly certain its not an error but then again all my other 40%ers don't look like the one i had to date check for.
Yes they definetaly can be missed if you are not careful. I've been doing halves for some time and gotten pretty comfortable just looking at the edges, however, even today when I went to dump what I thought was a skunk, I ended up pulling a '68 out of the machine when it clogged. So good thing it clogged or I might not have noticed it altogether. But yeah, it's a good idea to always check the dates, or if you only look at edges make sure you are in a well light area and pull any thing that stands out, out of the ordinary. I've found quite a few that are just dirty and black too (40% and 90%ers) this way.
Yeah, I always double check it if I can not see copper color on the edge. This guy made it sound like a 40% could show copper though. maybe I am missunderstanding what he said.
I've found more 40%ers that have a white/dark clad look to the edge than I have with solid white edges, but I see them both ways. Some of the BU or AU ones also have a clear copper layer, white/red/white, but generally after some circulation they look light/dark/light.
I just side search quarters and dimes, but I date check all of my halves because like that picture shows sometimes those 40% have two tone sides that I feel like I might miss if I just side searched...and I guess up to this point I haven't had an excessive number of halves to search seeing as I only find rolls here and there.
I have only got two rolls from the bank and being a new collector I was nearly fooled one a few coins. At first glance I thought there were no silver in my roll just by looking at the rims, but sure enough there was one 40% right in the middle that I looked past.
I have an uncirculated 40%er that looks like a clad. It is copperish all the way around the edge. The inner layer of a 40%er is 80% copper and 20% silver.
Throw that thing in the middle of a stack of silver and take a pic for us to check out. Not once have I seen a 40% er with a copper edge, dirty, two toned, odd looking, yes but never copper. I pull maybe 10-15 coins per box that are suspect and could be silver but typically there just clad and I snag all the silvers in my boxes, I like to think that anyway. I've never dumped coins and found silver that I missed. HOTN
I would have pulled every single one of those if I came across them, good job. Always pull the dirty ones like the one on the left of your picture. HOTN
Oddly enough, halves seem to be the only coins where on 40% silver the copper is visible. I have a bicentennial silver clad proof kennedy that shows copper all the way around the edge. This is very odd as I cannot see the copper on 40% Ike dollars and 40% bicentennial quarters.
