Silver in Circulation

For all you experienced coin collectors out there, when did silver stop circulating? And by that I mean when did it get to the point where you would take notice of finding a silver coin.

 

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What do you mean by "take notice?"

Your question: when did silver stop circulating? Answer: It hasn't. You can still find silver coins in circulation today.

If you're asking when did the gov't stop minting silver coins for circulation, that was around the 1964 time frame.

 

I wasn't around then but in talking with a lot of old-time collectors I have heard a lot of them say sometime in the mid to late 1970's. This also coincides with the big spikes of that time. This was also around the time the Hunt Brothers tried to corner the silver market.

 

1964 was the last year 90% silver coins were made for circulation. Only halves from 1965, 66, 67, 68, and 69 were made for circulation but they were 40%. The 1970-D Kennedy is 40% silver but it was only minted for Mint Sets and never released for circulation. By that time the value of the silver was more than face value of the half. Silver started disappearing from circulation as soon as clad coins were produced. Bad money drives good money out of circulation.

But, silver coinage is still circulating today, it's just more difficult to find.

 

In my 11 or so years of collecting, I have found the following silver coins in pocket change:
1. War nickel (forget the year)
2. 1953 Washington quarter
3. Silver Kennedy x3
AND THATS IT!

 

The last 90% silver coins were struck in 1966, the mint was using up the last of the silver and froze the 1964 date on coins struck in 90%. The 1965 dated clad coins were not minted until late in 1965 and quickly released in the fall of that year. From anecdotal accounts of that time there was a decent sized coin shortage going on because of people saving silver.

Another problem was changing the half over from the Franklin to the new Kennedy half early in 1964, people quickly hoarded the coin less for the silver and more for the souvenir of Kennedy aspect. Until then half dollars were fairly common in circulation.

I was a kid in the 1970s and a collector and don't remember seeing any 90% coins ever, only the occasional 40% 1965-69 half would turn up.

 

In the very early '70s, I was about 12 years old and helped my grandmother in her old country store... lots of silver would come through as well as war nickels. The occasional merc dime and Franklin half as well. She would let me pull a few of the nickels here and there, but more than 5 cents was a lot of money (especially when you're 12 years old) so everything else stayed in the cash drawer. That's one of the things that got me interested in coins. I still have the war nickels.

About 10 years ago, I got a walking liberty back in change from a drive thru fast food place... the worker had no idea what it was and asked if I wanted it as she was not sure if it was real money...

 

As stated 1964 was the last year coins were minted containing silver. 1965,66,&67 Kennedy half dollars were clad with 40% silver.
I say by 67-69 most of the silver coins were picked out of circulation . Yes once and a while you find one here and there.
At 9 I had a paper route my collection bag that I used monthly to collect for the papers was full of all silver coins.
That would of been 1963 ,I was paid in silver certificates , red seals 2 ' s and 5 ' s . My bag at any one time had buffalo nickels,war nickels, Mercury ,Roosevelt dimes, SLQ,and Washington , Walkers,and Franklin half's .
Once and a blue moon a Peace or Morgan dollar.
My neighbor father who serviced juke boxes, pin ball, and cigarette machines came home nightly with bags of silver coins.
Sometimes he let me search his bags picking out coins I needed to fill my albums.
By 1969 picking got slim..... as most knew that silver coins were gone for good.

 

P, can't begin to imagine how many silver coins we handled collecting for the paper!

 

I remember when folks were all talking about saving silver coins but I was too young and broke to save them. That was probably about 1968.

 

I remember when the Franklins disappeared. It was 1964 , I was 6. My family would take us kids to a swimming pool and it would cost .50 cents to get in. So my father would buy a whole roll of Franklins at the booth and we would each get one to put in the turn style. I loved the look of the Franklin and the new Kennedy but soon realized that the Franklins disappeared and as time went on there was no more silver. You could always tell when you got one in change, you could hear that special sound it made.

 

Reminds me of the time the teller slapped down some kenendys last year and I could barely contain myself when I heard the ring of the 90% 1964!

 

It was the spring/ summer of 1969.

Silver was disappearing sporatically and continually as the price increased and often got above face in the late-'60's. But then in '68 the price got up and stayed up and the FED started removing all silver that came in. This wasn't announced and not widely known at the time but no silver was coming out once it went in. By the late summer of 1969 it was no longer economically feasible to roll the coins through inertial separators to get the silver and they stopped.

Of course there were stray silver coins in piggy banks and elsewhere that trickled into circulation at least for several years but by 1971 you simply didn't see any silver in the Chicago area. There may have been a single silver quarter in a bag of quarters or as about the same as now. Indeed, the incidence of silver has been very steady over the years and hitting its lowest level in 2007 and highest in 2010.

I couldn't tell you how much variation there was across the country and I hear tell there was more silver in Maine but I doubt the variation is as much as is often reported. Some people just got into a small area or near the source of a "contamination" and assume what they saw was the same everywhere.

 

I had a paper route in the late '60's. I remember one Friday when I was "collecting" the weekly fee for delivering the Bridgeport (CT) Post, one of my subscribers said that I should save the 1964 and prior silver coins, because one day they will be worth a lot more than the face value. I think that was in 1968 or 1969.

That was great advice. I wish I had saved more!

 

When I was a kid in the 1950's I found all American coins ever produced in circulation except for gold, pre 1830 or so and half cents. Large cents, 2 cents, 3 cents, flying eagle cents, lots of Barber stuff, some seated liberty stuff and of course all the 20th century silver coins. It was a great time to collect coins. Cashiers readily handled the strange pieces and thought nothing of it. One thing not much in circulation was silver dollars. The banks had them but people did not like to carry them. I remember having most of the key date Lincolns including the 1955 with the wavy date.

 

Wow!

 

In the early 70's I delivered the NY. Daily News. I built up a route to about 300 customers. This area never had the news delivery prior to this and I got a lot of extras for every customer that I signed up.. I always remembered how the silver had disappeared and always checked all my change from the collections on the route. I don't ever recall ever finding any silver. But I do remember getting change back from making purchases in different stores and that special sound that the silver made. I would always grab the change and put it in my pocket quickly thinking that the store owner might recognize what they had just given me. And when I got outside I would take that change out and sure enough, SILVER.

 

Now lets imagine that something really weird happens with the economy or whatever and that silver drops drastically. I mean really low, so that a silver quarter would only be worth about 20 cents. Do you think we'd see a huge upsurge in the number of silver coins in circulation or do you think people would still hoard them and wait for silver prices to go back up? Yes, I know it's very highly unlikely silver would drop that low, but these days you never know.

 

I know, never say never, but Thomas Gresham's axiom of bad money drives out good applies here. Not to say that silver couldn't circulate again but at it's inflated value, say a dime = $1.30 again though.

 

Do you realize how low that would be? About $1 an oz.