Message:

<p>[QUOTE=&quot;-jeffB, post: 2181939, member: 27832&quot;]I had convinced myself that clad coins were significantly harder, and wore significantly more slowly, than silver. I&#039;ve heard others say this as well.</p><p><br /></p><p>I almost never see a clad quarter or dime worn down to G or VG. I think about all those slick Barber and Mercury dimes, SLQs, Barber and Walking Liberty halves, Buffalo and Liberty nickels...</p><p><br /></p><p>...<b>but hang on a second</b>. Those <i>nickels</i> are made of <i>exactly the same alloy</i> as the outer layers of a clad coin! Or, for that matter, a contemporary nickel.</p><p><br /></p><p>So, why do we see so few slick clad coins?</p><p><br /></p><p>I can imagine a few reasons:</p><p><br /></p><p>According to <a href="https://www.cointalk.com/threads/what-happens-to-worn-out-coins.125824/" class="internalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.cointalk.com/threads/what-happens-to-worn-out-coins.125824/">this thread</a>, the government still removes worn coins from circulation, albeit at a very low rate.</p><p><br /></p><p>Coins in general may be seeing less circulation, as inflation drives more transactions toward paper money, and (more recently) electronic payments become more prevalent.</p><p><br /></p><p>Modern mintages are enormously higher than mintages up to the mid-20th century. This would <i>seem</i> to imply <i>more</i> demand for circulating coins, but may just mean that there are more coins sitting around, and each individual coin is &quot;doing less work&quot;.</p><p><br /></p><p>When was the last time you heard about a shortage of change? There was a big fuss about it back when we shifted from silver to clad coinage. There have been periodic <a href="http://atlcoin.com/atlcoinblog/2012/01/05/coin-shortages-and-the-economy/" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://atlcoin.com/atlcoinblog/2012/01/05/coin-shortages-and-the-economy/" rel="nofollow">&quot;penny&quot; (cent) shortages</a>. But it seemed like those mostly arose because people couldn&#039;t be bothered to carry around and <i>spend</i> one-cent coins -- and rightly so, in my opinion.</p><p><br /></p><p>For the most part, cents go from the Mint, to the banks, to the stores, to the customers, to dresser drawers or jars or gutters. Increasingly, the same is true for higher denominations. Except for the ones that land in the gutters, there&#039;s not much opportunity there to accumulate &quot;honest wear&quot;.</p><p><br /></p><p>(Of course, the Mint <i>may</i> have found a solution with the self-destructing copper-coated zinc formulation. Zincolns retire <i>themselves</i>, given a deep scratch or two and exposure to moisture...)[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

Your name or email address:

Do you already have an account?

• No, create an account now.
• Yes, my password is:
• Forgot your password?

Stay logged in