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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;chrisild, post: 796251, member: 39&quot;]Silver coins usually have a different appearance or color, see the second post here. They often look a little &quot;softer&quot;; if you compare the silver and the clad versions of a Kennedy half dollar (or an Eisenhower dollar), you will probably see the difference right away.</p><p><br /></p><p>Unfortunately our eyes are not 100% reliable when it comes to detecting silver. <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie2" alt=";)" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /> Also, &quot;silver&quot; coins may have 50 percent silver, or 80 or 95 ... while other silverish-looking pieces are silver-plated copper.</p><p><br /></p><p>It helps to keep in mind that copper-nickel coins are something relatively recent. While the alloy itself is not new, Cu-Ni was not really used in coins until -- uh, I don&#039;t know, 1850-1900 maybe? And even then, it was used for lower or mid-range denominations first, while higher denominations continued to be silver coins until (again very roughly) 40 or 50 years ago.</p><p><br /></p><p>Of course a coin catalog such as Krause&#039;s SCWC would help, but you may not have that with you when you go to a garage sale. <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie1" alt=":)" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /> With a smartphone you could use their database at <a href="http://www.numismaster.com" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.numismaster.com" rel="nofollow">www.numismaster.com</a> instead.</p><p><br /></p><p>By the way, seems that the modern British crown-sized pieces (first 25p, now £5) have precisely the same diameter (38.61 mm) and the same weight (28.28 g) in both Cu-Ni and silver. So much for my theory in the previous post ...</p><p><br /></p><p>Christian[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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