Silver in the change

Couple days ago I got a 1952 dime in the change at the grocery shop.
I was searching for silver in bank rolls, got 1st silver dime after 300 dimes, and 2nd after 2400 or 2500 more.
Overall, do u think there are any statistics in finding silver among modern coins? Mine is 1400 per silver coin.

 

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I found out the likely cause of the problem of so few silver coins in circulation when I tried to SPEND a silver quarter a couple years ago.

The modern machines (vending machine, etc.) do not accept silver coins. I am not sure if the coin counting machines are as closely calibrated, but I would imagine that they are in order to reject counterfeits and foreign coins. So, if someone accidentally tries to spendone, it gets thrown back at them, and they would likely recognize it for what it is.

So…silver would only show up in a roll if it were done by hand.

(BTW – I was spending a silver quarter I had counterstamped – I tried to get a souvenir into circulation as a nice surprise for someone down the road, but I had a heck of a time doing it. I even had one cashier reject it because she said there was something funny about it.)

 

I do not know how many machines you tried or what the other circumstances were. I do know that the reason that the US Treasury chose the clad combination was specifically because it would mimic the electro-magnetic signature of silver and thus the new coins would pass in machines, though foreigns would not. Perhaps our standards have drifted since 1965. Silver started disappearing immediately. As a 16-year old kid, I knew enough economics from history to see where this was heading (and it did).

Good for her! Too many people pay too little attention to their money. We make fun of clerks who are boggled by a half dollar or an old Ike. (I know a story about purposely taking old coins -- half cent, 20-cent, etc. -- to the store just to videotape the clerks.) Then we make fun of people who accept Bush $200 bills. Either case points to the same problem: How do we learn about money? Your clerk was observant to some extent. On the observant side, also, when state quarters first came out, there was a question posted to Rec.Collecting.Coins: "I got a quarter today and it looks like an American coin, but..."

 

Silver coins are long gone from circulation. The average quarter is in a transaction about every twenty day and more than 5% of the population would remove a silver coin. This means the statistical life of a silver quarter in circultion is only a little more than a year. Coins occassionally will get hung up somewhere like in a retail store's safe or in storage at the fed, but it's highly unusual for a coin to not make a transaction for more than three years. Even coins that dropped behind a machine at the laundromat in 1964 was found and spent many years ago when the machines wore out and were replaced. It's very uncommon to see any coin operated machine more than fifteen years old. While it's not impossible for a silver coin to have passed from one piggy bank to another since 1964 the odds of there being even a single such coin are staggeringly small. It can not account for the large numbers of silver coin in circulation (dimes ~1: 1,000, quarters ~1: 1,800). These are coins being intentionally spent by collectors and by those who know it's silver but don't want to bother with selling it. These should be thought of as coins mixed in with the circulating coins because they simply don't circulate.

It is true that they don't work in modern vending machines. The clad composition was chosen largely because it mimics silver so closely. In fact a vending machine operator was asked what the biggest threat to his company was and he for the first time described a cu/ ni clad copper coin. Over the years the discriminators on vending machines have been fine tuned to reject anything except one of the current coins.

Most counting machines work primarily by separating the items by size before counting and do not reject based on weight, electro magnetic signature, metallic composition or anything else. I believe some of the major counting houses run their coins through some sort of discriminator because it's so unusual to find "bad coins" in their rolls. Most banks will look at the coin they run through the counter and the employee will pull out non standard coin for rejection.

 

I agree to a point, but she was about 35 or so, so I would have expected that she would have known a silver coin when she saw one. You are right, though, a young clerk who took a half cent, or even an IKE dollar would probably be one of the ones to take a $200 Bush bill.

 

True enough, but as I recall in those bad old days (60's, and 70's), I think even Canadian coins would work in many machines. That had to be stopped especially once the Canadian dollar took a dive.

 

I recently bought a mixed lot of used coin tubes on Ebay and in the bottom of one of the dime tubes was a 1947 S Roosevelt.

 

My last two silver circulation finds were both coins rejected by machines, a dime in the coin return of a pop machine at work and a quarter in the coinstar at the grocery store. My daughter has found 2 silver coins (also a dime and a quarter) in her register at work in about 4 years time.
I figure by this time most silver coins get into circulation out of desperation. ie. "I need a quarter to pay the paperboy". or 4 silver kennedys to buy a gallon of gas.

 

I was just talking to a friend who works at a gas station. A young kid came in and asked him to change 30 silver eagles into a 10 & 20 dollar bill. Thinking this was suspicious he called the police (the station is just across the street) a cop came over and the kid admitted he took them from his grandfather.

 

I worked at a convience store a few years back and every few months someone would bring in a roll of coins from their home that would have a silver coin or two in it.. I once received 4 rolls of circ Mercury Dimes that were all common war years dates. I had permission from my employer to purchase coins from the cash register and I found a lot of 40% Kennedys. I considered it a wonderful perk of the job.

 

My little convenient store days,
By cody
2,000 + wheat pennies over 3 years
16 or so silver dimes in the past 3 years
40.00 face value in pre 1960 jefferson nickels
10.00 face value of silver wartime nickels
2 buffalo nickels
3 1964 kennedy halves
1 franklin half
countless 40% silver franklins
2 silver certificates
100+ foreign coins from various countries, mostly mexico.
Don't give up hope on finding stuff in change, it's still out there somewhere, I just quit the convenient store buisness a couple months ago, and was finding coins up till the day I left.
It's also what got me started collecting coins, all it took was a handfull of wheat cents in my register one day.

 

My finds....

My finds as bookkeeper at a local supermarket:
1000+ wheat pennies
2 indian head pennies
12 silver wartime nickels
150+ silver dimes
30+ silver quarters
2 standing liberty quarters
6 buffalo nickels
$600 face value old bills 1957 silver certificates down to 1928 hundred dollar bill. Including at least 8 silver certificates, 4 1934 20s, etc.
3 40% Silver kennedy halves
20+ kennedy halves
1888 Morgan silver dollar
2+ rolls bicentenial quarters
1 proof susan b anthony dollar coin
opportunity to buy 100+ 2 dollar bills

Etc etc etc! Its amazing to find all of these still in circulation today!
My silver finds have recent decreased becuase our rolled change used to come in clear plastic rolls and it was easy to pick out the rolls with silver coins in them (generally 1 - 2 silver dimes per box of $250) and 0 - 1 Silver quarter per box of $500!

~Ryan

 

You see i get none of this, nothing interesting in change whatsoever. By interesting i mean silver... if it ain't silver i ain't interested.

 

I buy old and silver coins from my till at work. Just recently, somebody spent a 1965 Kennedy half and I bought it. Once in a while I get lucky and get a silver coin from a customer that doesn't know any better or don't care.

David

 

I have to buy my circulated silver coins (washington/mercs/roosies) from ebay usually over book value.

 

Proof Susan B. Anthony $1 in change.

It would be most unusual to find a Proof Susan B. Anthony $1 in change.It would be an impaired Proof if you were grading it.

Aidan.

 

Sigh, I should get a job as a cashier somewhere. It appears that I am missing the boat

 

I keep looking for Silver in my change each day, but sadly I find none or very little... I think I've found 2 or 3 pre 64 dimes, but thats about it.... I've found like 4 or 5 Quarters from 65, but none 64 of before...

Its not silver, but yesterday, I did find a 46 Wheatie in the floorboard of my Work truck...

 

I also use a register at work every once in a while, and usually I just find wheat pennies and pre-1959 nickels. However, we have a huge tip jar, and every week it gets sorted through a Coin-Star machine at our local bank for free, and it automatically spits out wheaties, silver dimes and quarters, and other such assorted odds-and-ends. Best of all, the manager that does this every week saves them all for me. And last week, a 1897 Barber dime was spit out, but a different manager was working, so she saved it for herself, sadly...

 

Silver dime at work. A customer was paying 80 cents or something and would not break a dollar so I was like great then saw a dime was silver and made sure to set it aside, 1963.