Fascinating subject. Wish I had even one copy of every coin ever minted, buy a new car, maybe a house? They even had the death penalty for forging and/or debasing!!! Continued at link, a pictoral history and facts, including total minted and what years a given coin was struck in. Continued at the link, includes all silver coins ever struck. Silver as Money: A History of US Silver Coins The history of silver as money goes back many thousands and thousands of years. Silver coinage first appeared around 600 BC in current day Turkey, and from there it has been used in every major empire, from the Greeks & Romans to the Spanish and current day United States. I’d like to take a look at the history of US silver coins that have been used as money since our nation begun. It’s amazing how few people even realize that for the first ~ 175 years of the US, silver was used in everyday coins and circulated throughout the economy as common money up until the year 1964, when they stopped making silver coins. Even though many coins overlap in dates, I organized the events in a timeline to view it in chronological order. I also included the dates of the various Coinage Acts and how they affected silver coinage. Take some time to look at the coins’ designs and appreciate the artwork. - Collapse All 1789
coins are intrigueing , but with anything 'collectable', you need to hold onto it for decades before making substantial gain over investment... coinage cost more than precious metal value, which makes them a poor choice for 'preppers', better off buying ingots and bars for preppin reasons...
True, but I wish I had a 5 gallon bucket of those flowing hair dollars from shortly after we sent the King and tories, packing. One coin can easily buy a new car.
Sadly enough. I was intrigued by this subject when I got two quarters in change, some months back. They sounded "off" as they hit my hand. One was 1962 and worth over 3 dollars, melt value. May try some coin roll hunting, take 50$ or so to the bank and buy rolled quarters or dimes and search for silver.
there's plenty out there, especially during the last decade many people started using their saved coins to make ends meet, too bad they didn't have the wearwithall to look at em first...
This raises a couple of questions. One, was at the store the other day and a women payed with paper roll pennies. The clerk took them in the back room to weigh them. How is that even possible, different years were minted with different %ages of different metallic alloys. I would think weight would be all over the board? And two, do you think banks search for silver coin, before rolling? If I buy 50$ and find not one silver quarter, I would assume so?
Oh for the days when a dollar was backed up with a dollar's worth of Gold or Silver. And that coin was to represent so many cents worth in silver.
Actually, preppers get great value in "circ 90" - that's circulated 90% silver dimes, quarters, & halves minted prior to 1965. Currently, circ 90 sells for about 10x face value for a $1000 face value bag with spot silver today at $14.53. A $1000 face bag of circ 90 has an actual silver weight of about 715 to 720 ounces. They also buy a fair amount of American Silver Eagles which are 1 ounce of .999 silver. Bar & ingots are NOT suitable for preppers as in times of crisis no market maker wants to worry about assaying. There's enuff chinese fake crap out there as it is. Numismatics is interesting for its history, research, and potential investment value.
Good luck, I have been doing that for decades. And I might find maybe 1 or 2 silver coins per month, and that is out of thousands of dollars of tills I audited. I always grabbed silver coins, and wheat pennies. I have a nice stash of wheats, but only a handful of silver coins. And the easiest way to look is to simply break open the roll then look at the edges. modern coins will have the copper sandwich clearly visible. In silver coins, the edge is entirely silver in color. Also the silver coins tarnish, something that the modern coins do not do.
But the cost was runaway inflation and deflation. People may think silver is good, until they look at what a true silver rush would have done to our economy. And that rush is the same thing that forces silver out of circulation. Until 1979, silver coins were still common in circulation. It was as common to see a 1960 goin at that time as it is today seeing a 2005 or earlier coin today. The silver value was maybe a penny more in a quarter, so nobody cared. But then came the Hunt Brothers. Between 1979 and 1980 they tried to corner the silver market, and drove the prices through the roof. In a year the price of silver jumped from $5 an ounce to $50 an ounce. The entire country went "silver mad", and silver coins quickly vanished form circulation. I even remember stores offering special discounts if you paid in silver. I remember getting a haircut for a silver dime in 1980. Now imagine the effect if all our coins were still silver. At that point inflation would have immediately set in, and we would have had coin shortages nationwide. And then even more quickly you had the crash, where the price dropped over 50% in just 4 days. A lot of people lost huge amounts of money, especially those that had been buying and hording the coins, not expecting the rapid crash to come. Precious metals are simply to volatile and prone to manipulation to use as a value of currency anymore. Over the last half a century we have seen this happen over and over again. And a country like the US or Russia if they wanted to could play havoc with the world economy simply by stockpiling or dumping gold onto the open market. This is why countries that hold or produce such things (in addition to diamonds) regulate how much they release into circulation. To much of a commodity, priced drop. To little, prices rise. Be it gold, silver, diamonds, compute chips, or oil.
Yeah, i never got around to that. Did know about the edges though, so i check all pocket change. Guess I am about 30 years to late on this. Think modern dollar coins will increase in value? My local hospital has a snack machine that changes 5s. It spits out 4 quarters and 4 dollar coins.
No. They simply never caught on, and are more of a curiosity than anything else. Whenever I go to the bank I always ask for $2 bills, and dollar and fifty cent coins. Not to save, but to spend. And there are still lots of Susan B coins, as well as those that came afterwards. The Susie B was only made for 4 years. 1979-1981, and in 1999. And all three are very common. But like $2 bills and $0.50 you generally have to ask at a bank if you want any. Seeing them in circulation is rare. Yea, the President ones are interesting, but only hard core collectors collect them. Not for speculation, but simply to have at least one of all. They were such a flop that from 2007-2011 most simply sat in vaults, nobody wanted them. From 2012 until 2016 they were only minted for collectors, so those do have more value because of the limited numbers. At this time, the most valuable of the entire Presidents series if that of President Reagan. This was a limited issue, not for circulation but as a proof to collectors. And it is only valued at $3.50. Even the Bicentennial coins (made for only a single year) are only given face value. The only exception is those minted in San Francisco, because those were proof only releases. But they only bring in around twice face value.
You put this together yourself? That's an impressive pet project. I've always loved coin collecting, but unfortunately modern coinage is next to worthless beyond it's face value.
