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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Neal, post: 7864087, member: 43872&quot;]This is true, at least in part.&nbsp; And certainly the engineering of the design was a factor.&nbsp; There is also what might be termed the velocity of circulation.&nbsp; In the 1800s commerce as a whole was slower.&nbsp; A given coin would be spent less times in a year than the same denomination in the 1940s or 1950s or even 1960s.&nbsp; Half dollars especially were very high denomination coins and spent a lot of time sitting in bank vaults in the 1800s.&nbsp; The silver Washington quarters were at a time when quarters were a major denomination for daily transactions.&nbsp; You could buy a burger and drink for a quarter, or see a movie.&nbsp; By the 1960s inflation was making that less so, but vending machines still sold a coke for a dime or at most a quarter.&nbsp; The modern clad coins seem to last forever, in part because they are harder than the silver coins, but also the circulation demands for them have slowed because of plastic and electronic transactions.&nbsp; Many of the coins sit for years in jars where people dump the change they do get.&nbsp; When I was a kid in the 1960s I wrapped coins at a bank for extra spending money, and searched the bags first.&nbsp; In the early 1960s a 1930s quarter or dime was usually no better than VG, occasionally F.&nbsp; That is 25-30 years of circulation.&nbsp; Today, I frequently see a 1965 quarter in VF or better, seldom worse unless it has spent time &quot;on the road.&quot;&nbsp; That&#039;s 56 years of &quot;circulation.&quot;&nbsp; Nickels, being harder, lasted longer.&nbsp; In the early 1960s late buffaloes, 1935-38, were common in VF and sometimes in XF.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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