Is Your Coin Silver or Not?

How to Tell the Difference


Silver is all the rage these days, with prices shooting from about seventeen dollars an ounce at the start of the year, to nineteen dollars in July, twenty-two dollars in October, and now at the close of 2010 almost topping thirty dollars an ounce. Being as it is a wise investment at this time, and a bit of a hobby too, people are digging through their closets and rooting through their attics for silver odds and ends, jewelry pieces, and coins.

But how do you know if that dusty, old shoe box full of coins in the back of your closet has any silver in it? Or if that jar full of spare change on the mantle has some surprises in store for you? How do you tell if a coin is silver of not? Several tests exist to determine the silver content of a coin; simple, quick, and easy observations one can make of one's own collection, to see if any goodies lie therein.


Date

Probably the easiest, and also the most foolproof method for determining a coin's silver content is its date. Every coin minted in the U.S. has a date on the face of the coin, and dimes, quarters, half dollars, and dollar coins minted in 1964 and earlier have a ninety percent silver content. If you're rummaging through your collection and you happen to come across an old quarter, dime, half dollar, or dollar that dates before 1965 then you're in luck! That's ninety percent silver right there!

Also, the Kennedy half dollars minted in 1965 to 1970 were made with forty percent silver. Not quite as valuable, but definitely worth keeping an eye out for! Other collector coins have been made of silver (in 1976 for the bicentennial of the United States and then from 1992 to present time) but these are very rarely found in circulation.


Appearance

The appearance of a coin is the next best indicator of whether or not it's silver. Silver coins actually have a different look to them than the "clad" (regular copper/nickel) coins. These clad coins are actually a bit of a sandwich. Imagine two plates of nickel alloy being pressed onto a piece of copper, then stamped and finished up. Well, that's how modern dimes, quarters, half dollars, and dollar coins are made. And since the copper/nickel alloy is actually a harder metal than regular silver, silver coins that have been in circulation tend to have a softer, less defined, more worn look, and sometimes have distinctive dark or tarnished areas on its surface.

Grab a quarter out of your pocket. Take a look at the edge of the coin. Notice how it's kinda brown, while the two faces of the coin are the typical silvery color? On the edge of the coin the copper is actually showing through where the nickel didn't fully cover. This brown edge indicative of clad coins does not appear on 90% silver coins. The edges of these silver coins are evenly the same color as the rest of the coin. As an exception to this rule, forty percent silver coins can have a darker ring around the edge. The center layer of these is made up of mostly copper, sandwitched between two layers of silver. Best to double verify by checking the dates on these ones.


Weight

Next, the weight of a coin can actually tell you what kind of metal it's made of. Granted you'll need a very delicate measuring device, perhaps a gram scale or a jeweler's scale to determine this, and also granted a coin will lose some of its weight through circulation caused by abrasion, destruction, and rubbing, but this method is still quite effective.

Basically silver weighs more than the usual copper/nickel alloy. For example a run of the mill Washington quarter weighs 5.67 grams, and a silver Washington quarter will weigh in at 6.25 grams, a little more than half a gram difference.


Sound

Finally, the sound a coin makes when dropped onto a hard surface is also an indicator of its make-up. Silver coins when dropped onto something hard produce a very distinctive ringing tune, where clad coins make more of a thud. The sound is actually so unique that some experts who have worked with a lot of silver can actually tell if a coin is silver or not, simply by dropping it on the table.

Using these four above methods: date, appearance, weight, and sound you can accurately see if your coins are silver or not. No need to take them to a dealer or pawn shop to determine their make-up now. And for anyone with a lot of old coins and some free time, applying this data can be a fun way to spend a rainy day, and possibly profitable too! So good luck and happy searching!

Young Collectors

Why Coin Collecting is Good for the New Generation

Ever seen this at your house?

Maybe so.

Picture this.....

“Come on Timmy, dinner’s almost ready and you still need to take the trash out and set the table,” Grandma called across the house to her 12 year-old grandson. Timmy’s blank eyes stayed glued to the tv screen, mouth hung open, fingers being the only moving part of his body as they worked madly over the video game controls.

Timmy ignored his grandmother, “Heck yeah! Get shot you nasty Arcturian!” he exclaimed suddenly, as he blew up some big alien or something.

“Come on Timmy!” Grandma shouted from the kitchen.

Timmy rolled his eyes, ignored her some more, and kept playing, blowing up at least five or six more aliens. It wasn’t until he could hear his grandma’s footsteps coming down the hall towards him that he hit the pause button, grumbled and mumbled to his feet, and headed for the kitchen.

Now picture this.....

“Wow gramps, this one’s so cool!” Timmy said, gazing at his grandpa’s favorite coin, a 1947 silver Walking Liberty half dollar. Sitting in a dimly lit room, with the cold wind blowing on the windows, and steaming mugs of hot chocolate resting on the desk, Grandpa and Timmy pored over Grandpa’s old coin collection, taking turns inspecting each coin closely, and admiring the individual characteristics of each one.

“Timmy, that there coin was minted the very same year your Grandmother and I were married. It was also the last year that coin was ever made.”

“Niiiice,” Timmy said, not taking his eyes off the coin as he turned it over and over in his fingers.

Grandpa smiled, took a sip of his cocoa, and continued with his story. “Yeah, that was one heck of a year alright. A couple days before the wedding I was shoppin’ around downtown, making some last minute purchases before the big day, and I stepped into that old coffee shop across the street from the collectibles store. I bought myself a cup of joe and that there Liberty was my change. Don’t quite know why I’ve kept it all these years, I guess old Miss Liberty just reminded me of your grandma.”

“It’s so pretty, gramps,” Timmy said, taking his eyes off the coin for the first time. He smiled at his grandfather, and reached for his cocoa mug.

Grandpa took a sip from his own mug, stared into the dark brown liquid for half a moment, then spoke again. “I reckon you can have it Timmy. And that coffee shop’s long gone but I reckon that old collectibles store is still in business, and if you want, I’ll take you on by tomorrow morning, and maybe we can find some more coins for you.”

Timmy almost choked on his hot cocoa. “Aww, thanks Grandpa!” Timmy put down his mug and hugged his grandpa, then leapt of the stool to go tell Grandma about it, the whole time keeping a tight grip on the Walking Liberty, not setting it down, or even putting it in his pocket.

* * *

The various hobbies children choose to take part in have changed over the decades. When the baby boomers were young, stamp collecting, coin collecting, model plane and car building, and other constructive and valuable hobbies were very popular. Now the grandchildren of the baby boomers, kids born in the nineties and the early part of the twenty-first century have a very different idea of fun. Video gaming, social networking online, television, movies, and online games are just some of the more popular interests youngsters have in this day and age.

But what can any one child learn from a video game or a tv show? With hobbies like coin collecting a kid could not only learn a lot about coins in general, knowledge that may come useful later in life, but could also build a collection that’s value might grow exceedingly with age. That, and he’d be doing something creative.

Anyone’s most valuable use of his or her abilities is through the act of creation. But what is your child or grandchild really creating by sitting in front of a tv for hours on end on a sunday afternoon? Not much really. What if that same child spent that time raiding pawn shops, antique stores, and online businesses looking for his or her favorite coins, organizing them, labeling them, and creating a collection of coins? And then what if that youth could sit you down and dictate to you details about all the different coins in your pocket? And what if a few years later that kid was all grown up, was so learned in the field of coin collecting, and had such a big collection, that maybe that kid wanted to open up his or her own business? And make a living doing it? That hobby would’ve turned out to be a pretty useful one.

Video games themselves are not all bad. There’s nothing wrong with collapsing on the couch after a hard day at school or work, and blowing up some aliens for a little while. But when this sort of “digital fixation” is all children do, except of course when they are being made to do other things by their parents, it becomes a bit of a problem.

Could this digital fixation be argued to effect children in other areas than the home life? School maybe? Perhaps. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the amount of children receiving good grades and doing well in school was steadily rising throughout the fifties, sixties, seventies, and the first half of the eighties. But right around 1987 this trend leveled out, and the good grades didn’t get any better, and even dropped in some areas.

But what would a hobby like coin collecting do for your child or grand kid? Hours of time spent studying, labeling, and sorting coins would be hours spent learning. Imagine if little Timmy not only went to school to learn, but then came home and sat down at his desk, pulled out his coin box, and learned some more? Time spent studying something, actual free time nonetheless, would only make the routine of public school that much easier.

Hobbies like coin collecting impress other values on youngsters too, subtler, more subjective ideals. When a child gazes at an old coin, perhaps one that is even more than a century old, he or she takes in the art that is the embodiment of the coin. The various marks etched into its surface from years of circulation, the coloration from exposure to the elements, the artistry of the design itself; these all sing the song of creativity and art. But on the “flip side” of the coin so to speak, there is not much artistry or creation involved with video games, or tv, or mindless hours wasted transfixed and zombified by a computer screen.

So the hobbies of old, coin collecting, model cars, planes and trains, stamp collecting, etc. all teach and help our children discover many things: appreciation for art, creativity, useful knowledge of the hobby itself, potential futures, and the simplicity of respect for the little, the real, and the special things in life. The tokens, whether they be a special coin, a limited edition stamp, a well made model car, or even a finished jigsaw puzzle, are all puddles of opportunity for our children and grandchildren to splash in. And let’s let them get as wet and muddy as they’d possibly want, for who knows what one, little, childhood hobby might become in the future.