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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Conder101, post: 1036946, member: 66&quot;]Idhair has the answer.&nbsp; Due to the rising silver prices the government wanted to remove the silver from all the coinage.&nbsp; But the silver producers applied pressure to their Representatives and Senators to retain silver in all the circulation coinage.&nbsp; The efforts by these Congress members resulted in delays in passing the needed legislation to create the clad coinage.&nbsp; They finally reached a compromise that made the dimes and quarters clad, the half dollar 40% silver and the silver dollar 90% silver.&nbsp; This took the silver out of the workhorse coins and left the largest coins till silver or partially silver.&nbsp; This compromise passed as part of the coinage act of 1965.&nbsp; Later the silver dollar was eliminated by presidential order, and eventually the silver was removed from the halves.</p><p><br /></p><p>Frankly I&#039;m not sure why the silver interests pressed for the silver to remain in the coins.&nbsp; It was obvious that their continued circulation was impossible since they were now worth more as metal than as money.&nbsp; You might think that they were hoping that the Treasury would be pressured to buy even more of their silver to continue making the coins, but the law required the Treasury pay no more than $1.2929 per oz for silver and the market price was already higher than that.&nbsp; So the silver producers would have to sell to the Treasury at less then they could get on the open market.&nbsp; Why would they?&nbsp; Probably they hoped the government would raise the purchase price.&nbsp; But if that had occurred, all the silver coinage in circulation would have immediately disappeared since it would be profitable to melt it down and sell it back to the government at more than face value.&nbsp; (Not good when you are already in the middle of a coin shortage.)&nbsp; And at the rate the Treasury was drawing done their reserves to create silver coins they would have been completely out of silver within three years.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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