What was the switch from silver to clad coinage like?

MastaHanky

I guess this is directed more at some of the older members of the board.

When the mint switched from silver to clad coinage in 1965, was there a big ordeal about it? Was there any public reaction? Were people scared that their money would lose all value? News stories, newspaper articles, etc? Or was it a big hype that quickly fizzled out, like the Sacajawea dollar?

Gemini

I remember one of the coin magazines warning not to try removing silver coins from circulation as there was so much of it out there it was almost impossible and could never be done...
The tell tale copper edge of the new coins really doomed that theory and even non colectors could easily detect the silver coins and this greatly helped the silver coins to vanish rather quicker than anybody had thought.

Steve27

I was a kid at the time, but I remember that nobody liked the clad stuff (no big uproar though) and silver was soon removed from circulation.

DHeath

It was a gradual "removal" of silver. The 65 halves still contained some silver. My family had several cigar boxes that were soon full of mostly halves, and anything else older than 1950. It was still pretty common to get smaller silver denominations in change till the late 60's. BTW - Everyone hated the change to clad, and thought the newer coins were worthless.


Edited to add - Not unlike many today.

AbesNeighbor

I can remember Standing Liberty quarters were still in circulation through about 1968 and you could still find them in very fine to AU condition..Then, all of a sudden, they were gone.

jeffnpcb

As I look back, I could just cry. I'm 47, and in the early to mid-sixties we would collcet soda bottles for deposit change to buy whatever. If we wanted to go to the movies for the day, we had to collect a bunch. We were almost always paid in silver coinage even into the latter 60's. There were still alot of Merc. dimes, Walking Lib quarters and halves. Alot of Franklins as well. Even our allowance of up to $1.00 was in silver coinage at the time.
I think back now and wonder how many thousands of dollars could have gone through my hands and did not realize it.
The last time I made a big exchange was a gentleman in late '75 that came in and complained he had stopped at a small store north of our town, and he was given 11 silver dollars. 4 were Morgaans and 2 were Peace dollars. He wanted too change them for paper and I was happy to oblige him. Yes, I still have them today, but HOW I MISS MY CHILDHOOD DAYS IH THE EARLY SIXTIES!!!!!

LanLord

I was young (turned 7 that year) but I remember my parents referring to the "new" style of dime, quarter and half dollars as "sandwich" coins. They also new something was important about the older coins as they decided to keep an old bag full of silver quarters (which my brothers and me ransacked and spentisgust. What seems so interesting now in retrospect, is they didn't attempt to save any dimes or half dollars (other than one or two of the new Kennedy halfs) just quarters.

The lesson to learn here is that what is common today will not always be common, it may not be a moster rarity, but there is a good chance it will be desired by someone in the future.

baccaruda

pennies, for example. how long before the intrinsic value of a penny outweighs it's face value - at which time they will be pulled from circulation like the silver coins were.

braddick

I was in second grade at the time- but my brother and I used to collect coins the old fashion way. Go into small Mom & Pop stores and exchange rolls of pennies and maybe dimes (after we had weeded out the good dates, of course from the first roll!).

At first, we would actually cherry the CLAD coins because they were so unusual and there might only be one or two CLAD's in the roll of silver dimes.
Of course that was foolishness on our part, but who knew for what, back then?

It didn't take too long before the coin varieties were reversed and it was silver that was difficult to locate in that near full roll of clad dimes.

remumc

My sophmore year of high school, 1971, I did a science project comparing the old silver coins to the new clad coins entitled "How Bad Clad?" Got the idea from a Coinage article. Took second place in the Junior Chemistry catagory.

Regards,

Wayne

baccaruda

remumc,

what did you compare?

Mark

I was collecting back in those days. People in general, as well as collectors, were interested in what the new clad coins would look like. I think most people probably saved the first one or two they obtained. President Johnson and Eva Adams (the then director of mint, who pretty much disliked collectors at that period in her life, though she later repented and became one of the ANA's board members) both asserted that withdrawing the silver coins was silly because silver was never going to rise above $1.29 an ounce, the price at which it is profitable to melt silver coins. Needless to say, this was a rude awakening for me as to the truth of many statements offered by government officials.

Virtually all collectors disliked the clad coinage, which is why relatively little was saved. Starting circa 1966 or so, people in general, and many collectors began to hoard silver coins. But after the price of silver rose above $1.29, the real money was to be made in silver certificates. For quite a while it was possible to redeem silver certificates for more than $1 in silver. I recall MANY ads in Coin Worldoffering above face amounts for silver certificates. The amount they were willing to pay changed moment to moment, depending on the price of silver. The Treasury put an end to the fun by setting a last date upon which silver certificates could be redeemed for silver.

Back to the clad coinage. Most people simply accepted clad coins because they care little about what they use as coins. Most collectors stopped their sets of dimes, quarters, and halves at 1964 because that was the last of "real" coins. I guess that not too much has changed today, though more collectors are venturing into collecting clad coinage.

Mark

cladking

There were dire predictions about the coins before they were released. Many believed
they wouldn't operate in machines and there would be massive tie-ups on toll roads. There
were predictions that many people would refuse them as legal tender and the economy
would grind to a halt. There was even some speculation that the explosively bonded coins
could lose their structural integrity, the resultant catastrophic failure could even cause some
injuries. Some believed that without good silver as money that the government would lose
all restraint in the production of money and hyper inflation and the destruction of civilization
would soon result.

The actual introduction of he coins in November '65 turned into a major non-event. The gen-
eral population simply didn't care or didn't even notice and hobbyists were simply left cold.
Most of us dutifully tried to disassemble the first example that came our way and soon began
to forget they existed. Some collectors did save massive numbers of the first issue coins as
speculation. On rare occasion rolls of 1965 quarters can still be found but most of these were
released to circulation all through the late sixties and early 70's when it beame obvious no
premium would be attached to them. Trying to ascertain exactly what collectors were doing in
those days was complicated by the tendency of the fed and mint to find large quantities of
old uncirculated clad coins in storage. These coins would be released as much as nine years
after production. Also vast numbers of circulated coin would get lost in their vaults for years
and the coins that were recent date when they went into storage would still be high grade. They
began rotating their coin stocks in 1972 when FIFO accounting was adopted. Soon most all coin
began wearing more evenly in circulation.

There were many reasons that collectors were so repelled by the coins. The country was in the
midst of a coin shortage and collectors had taken much of the blame for it. A bill had been intro-
duced in congress which would have made most coin collecting illegal. Many other steps were
taken to discourage collectors from saving coins also including the elimination of mint marks and
a date freeze. The mint was most concerned about grinding out large numbers of coins and had
not yet perfected the techniques necessary to make attractive clads. Dies were used far beyond
their productive life and were often set far apart to maximize production. Quality was attrotious
for most of the early clads which further served to chill collectors.

It should also be remembered that in 1965 all modern coins were in an imploding bubble. Collect-
ors had driven the price of recent date rolls, bags, and sets to unrealisticly high levels. Talk of
illegalizing collecting and the introduction of clads caused many people to sell and resulted in the
collapse of the market.

Collectors had many reasons to hate clad.





Last two paragraphs added.

MacCoin

if I remember right the price of silver was worth more than the coins. people where melting the coins for silver.

mdwoods

Nice thread. I really liked the replies, especially Cladkings very informative reply. I never knew a lot of that stuff. I was 12 when the Clads came out. I thought they were kind of neat, although they took some getting used to. And it was disappointing to see the Mercurys and SLQs completely disappear from circulation in such a short time. I used to save my money and buy rolls from the bank in about 62-64. You could find some nice old silver dimes, halfs, and quarters. And wheaties all the way back to 1909. mdwoods.

airplanenut

<< <i>pennies, for example. how long before the intrinsic value of a penny outweighs it's face value - at which time they will be pulled from circulation like the silver coins were. >>

They're pretty much worthless- almost no copper at all, and zinc isn't a hot commodity at all...

fishcooker

I remember back about 1978 when pennies were worth more than 1 cent. The local grocery store had a sign up saying they would pay $1.08 to $1.10 for 100 pennies.

baccaruda

because they were still made of copper -

what's next when the zinc content is worth more than 1¢? pressboard? styrofoam? plastic?

mrfred

My best memory of that time (I was not collecting then -- I started collecting only about two years ago) is linguistic. I definitely remember picking up the term 'sandwich coins', and to this day I tend to use it in casual speech. I wonder where that term came from?

UncleJoe

The biggest problem for me at the time was that the new clad coins would not work in the machines at the laundrymat.

If you had clad quarters you had to go to the attendant to swap them for silver quarters.

Joe.

silverandgray

I was 8 years old when I saw my first clad coin. It was a 1965 quarter. My dad called it "funny money." Both of my parents were concerned that the silver was taken out, and began to hoard all the silver change. It was no big deal to me. It was not as emotional as my mom throwing out my Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays baseball cards. :-)

misterR

<< <i>I remember back about 1978 when pennies were worth more than 1 cent. The local grocery store had a sign up saying they would pay $1.08 to $1.10 for 100 pennies. >>

I'm pretty sure the value of the copper in a cent has never exceeded one cent. I remember the cent shortage but it occured for some other reason than the value of the copper. Anyone have a better memory than I?

BillJones

In general people took it in stride. The quarters were the first clad coins to be released I believe. I remember that one of my uncles who was from the old school thought that it was an indicator that the country was “going to hell.” I also remember a few letters to the editor in coin collector magazines the decried the clad dimes as “really pathetic hamburger coins.”

The clad and silver coins circulated side by side for quite a while. I remember picking quite a few silver coins out of rolls as late as the summer of 1968. There was a dealer in Philadelphia, PA who was paying 8% over face for silver coins, and I used that little boost to increase my coin budget.

My big purchase of the summer was a 1799 silver dollar for $210. The coin had full VF-EF sharpness, but it was cleaned white. The cleaning made no difference a few years later however when I sold it to a dealer for 3 times what I had paid for it. Everybody wanted those coins to be white back then, which is why there are not that many “original” Bust dollars now.

construct

I remember the coin shortage of 1964. The clerk at the drugstore had to give me change in nickels and apologized for not having anything larger. I asked why they hadn't gone to the bank of change. She said they had, but the bank was out of silver coinage too!

My mother taught me to ring coins on the counter to tell if they were real. She said the clad stuff didn't even LOOK like money.

baccaruda

I remember that one of my uncles who was from the old school thought that it was an indicator that the country was “going to hell.”

well, he nailed that one.

UncleJoe

misterR, For a short while the value of the copper in the cent was more than .01 which started a lot of hoarding of cents.

Stores were rounding to the nearest nickel because cents were hard to get. However, soon the price of copper went down and the hoarding stopped.

Then the Gov't resolved the issue by taking the copper out of the cent.

Joe.

JeffinMich

Great thread...I always wondered about the change over, and wasn't even a twinkle in my parents eye at that time.

Concerining the Lincoln Cent:

"what's next when the zinc content is worth more than 1¢? pressboard? styrofoam? plastic?"

I have the solution........How about we finally get rid of the cent?

jimtre

The biggest problem for me at the time was that the new clad coins would not work in the machines at the laundrymat.

If you had clad quarters you had to go to the attendant to swap them for silver quarters.

Joe.



This reminds me of of a friend of mine that I worked with in the middle 70's. I was at the time messing around with coins and although I could not afford MS did fall into the silver ordeal. I would buy coins including silver coins. Earlier I had been paying 20% over face for circulated and 30% overf for uncirculated coins. Anyway when the price was around 3 times face a credit union advertised for sale to the highest bidder a bag of silver coins containing (my memory escapes me $ amount). These coins had been used as collateral for a loan that went bad.

I did not have the dollars to buy them but talked my boss and this friend into buying half of them if i got them. They agreed to and I bid 3.2 times face for them. I did win them. I called the Credit Union and they confirmed that I had won them. We rounded up the money and the next day i went in and picked them up. Th man in charge was relieved as the second bidder (a corvallis coin store) had been calling him hoping we didn't pick them up. He had bid just a tad less than I had.

It turns out that there was actually $30 more face in the bag than they had advertised. I told the Manager this and he just shrugged his shoulders and said I had bid on the lot and it was mine.

As time went on (I sold my half as I could not afford to keep them) silver kept going up and

Now to the actual story my friends dad had had a car wash in the Seattle area and had sold it but my friend remembered he had been kicking around 2 bags of quarters (silver as the clad didn't work very well).

He went home to Seattle one day and told his dad "I have great news for you". You remember those 2 bags of silver quarters you have. Well, they are worth a lot of money now.

His dad replied "One day I figured they were in my way and were not drawing any interest so I took them down and put them in the savings account". My friend was sick of course.

As you recall the Hunt brothers tried to corner the silver market and the price of silver reached over $50 an ounce. I rounded up all of my uncirculated silver (the circulated had already been sold as the market went up) and along with the coins my friends had bought with me as statede earlier in the message took it to the local dealer and got 23 times face ($2.30 for each dime etc) WOO HOO.

This was virtually the day the bubble burst and silver dropped like a rock!!!!

truthteller

Steve Markoff, owner of AMARK precious metals and one of the largest coin, precious metals and bullion traders in the business, got his start to fame with a bright idea. He had a store in downtown LA in the early to mid60's. When the debasement of coinage occured, the treasury would offer a small container of silver, worth about $1.17 for every silver certificate that was redeemed, of course, larger quantities meant more silver. It came in the form of pure silver shot pellets. The treasury was trying to recover a large portion of the existing silver certificates and issue greenbacks. Well, Markoff would advertise in the large newspapers, that he would buy any silver $1 certificate for $1.10. He bought millions and millions and traded them in to the treasury for silver bullion shot. Working on the 5-7 cents profit off the deal, he made tons of money in volume until mid 1968 when the Treasury ended the redemption of silver for currency program.

TRUTH

MrKelso

When they removed the silver even the sound of coins in the pay envelope sounded different. It was horrible.

coynclecter

The price of silver went way up in 61 and 62 so the gov't tried to hold it down by dumping large quantities. We were the largest silver holder in the world. They even went into the vaults and brought out bags of Morgans and Peace dollars which is where 90% of them come from. Even released a few bags of unc seated dollars.

In 1964 they minted a ton of silver Kennedys. By 1965 they realized they were losing so they halted release of the Silver dollars, the remaining were sold in the GSA sales. I remember silver at 6-8X face and more at times, like the Tulip thing. Most of them were melted. I knew what stores kept thier own coins so I would get rolls and pick out the silver ones.

By 1966 there were no more. There was also a lot of buying of Silver Certificates at about 1.10 like he said but the Gov soon reniged on that one too. Coin collecting went into a real nose dive for a few years.

Hot coins at that time were rolls of modern stuff. They were collecting roll sets. 1955S pennies, 1950D nickels, proof sets less than 5 years old were 5-10x release price. 1955DD was big $$. The classic were neglected except for the older collectors. It all crashed and stayed there for a long time. sounds like history might be in for a repeat.

SarasotaFrank

my Dad and I stopped collecting. All of our albums ended at 64.

oreville

The clads did not get released untl very late 1965 when I was 12 years old and if my memory serves me right the 1965 dimes did not get released until spring 1966.

It was a sad event as a young collector. The mercs, barbers walkers, and SLQ were driven into hiding.

hookedoncoins

<< <i>pennies, for example. how long before the intrinsic value of a penny outweighs it's face value - at which time they will be pulled from circulation like the silver coins were. >>



According to my 1993 Economics book, pennies currently cost the mint 2/10 of a cent to make. That is half of what the old copper-zinc pennies cost (4/10).

-Jarrett Roberts

presleyh

I had a paper route and it was .50 per week. Every Saturday I would collect from my customers and most paid with silver quarters or halves. Many of the coins were almost smooth from being in circulation for many years. It was very common to get walking liberty halves and the "flying eagle" quarters. Franklins were the common coin of the day. I think one side effect of the clads is that they don't wear down like the silver coins. If silver coins had not been demonetized we would still be carrying them around like it was normal, and the coins would be so slick you couldnt tell a walker from a franklin.

cladking

The clad coins are wearing far better than the old silver coins. They are much harder and more
durable than the silver coins. The copper nickel cladding layers simply will take more abuse with-
out shedding much metal due to the cutting or sloughing effects of rubbing against other things.
The coins are lighter so have less momentum or weight behind them usually when they do collide
with other coins and objects. Of course the coins hitting them tend to be lighter also. Another
significant factor is the greatly reduced physical work being done by human labor. Large percentages
of work is now done with machinery which doesn't have a pocketful of change getting worn away.
The largest difference is probably the dramatically lower velocity of coin. Coins now spend much more
of their lives sitting in vending machines and banks than they used to.

Remember that in 1965 a 1932 quarter was frequently found in AG and even occasionally in Poor.
These coins were only 33 years old at the time. Today a 1965 quarter is rarely encountered below
Good. While most dates of the clad coins are uniformly worn due to lack of collector or hoarder
interest, they are in far better shape despite their greater age.

FatMan

I remember that I was in first grade 1965-1966 when my dad told us to check our change everyday and he bought all our silver coins from us. He stored them in coffee cans. He paid us an extra penny for every coin we sold him. My older brothers had newpaper routes and I thought it was unfair that they could get even more money from my dad for their collections. I had little income so I was quite jealous. Well he kept those cans until silver skyrocketed and sold the coins for melt and took my mother on a two week vacation to Europe in 1980 right after I graduated college and moved out.