For those that personally went through the silver/clad coinage transition
Justacommeman
Posts: 22,852 ✭✭✭✭✭
A few questions por favor
I take it for granted it wasn’t announced overnight. What was the transition like? How much lead time was given between silver and clad? How long to it take before silver coins pretty much disappeared? Was it done orderly? Were there big arbitrage opportunites? Were there places in the country that it disappeared more quickly? Were rural areas laggards? It just seem like a really big deal. When did you start pulling silver to save? Did Icollectors have an advantage over the layman? Did you put it in a coffee can? I asked my Dad and he really didn’t remember it as a game changer of any sort. He wasn’t a collector.
Please feel free to tell your stories. Hopefully Roger didn’t write a book about this.
mark
Walker Proof Digital Album
Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
5
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I was just a young kid but I seem to recall that it took a bit of time to catch on. The 40% halves made it seem that silver was still in use so no big deal. I'm sure there were some who clearly understood what this meant and began hoarding all they could but back then you either had disposable money or you didn't. Credit cards weren't even widely used back then.
From 1965 to at least the summer of 1968, there was a phase-in of the new clad coinage. I had a summer job from college working at a fast food restaurant. I was setting aside silver coins when they came in over the counter. There was a dealer in Philadelphia who was paying 8% over face value and a little more in trade for collector coins. At the time this dealer was buying this material on a speculative basis. He was getting in ahead of the market.
I could regularly pull $20 to $30 in silver dimes and quarters every couple of weeks. If I had had something more than a student's wages, I could have pulled out more silver from circulation. My grandmother went the local small town bank and acquired silver half dollars. When we I helped to help settle her estate, she had about $400 face value in silver half dollars, all acquired from the economy in the late 1960s.
It was my understanding that the mint phased out the production of 90% silver coinage during the 1965-6 period. Silver coin production did not stop instantly.
I can remember receiving my first clad quarter, and knowing what it was because I had heard they were coming, but I have no specifics as to dates.
The early '60s had high mintages in silver coins, and 1964 had the highest - so the existing stock of coins was pretty large and it took about another 5 or 6 years after the switch to actually notice that clad coins had become predominant. They purposely made the circulating halves with 40% silver from 1965 to 1969 so that it didn't seem as obvious that silver was leaving the money supply. Even so, you could find some 90% coins and 40% halves from time to time until probably around 1975 or so.
At one point, bullion dealers would tout bags of 40% halves as the best way to hedge - because the premium was low, compared to spot, so there was a floor equal to the face value under the price, and a potential price rise if silver should take off. As the price of silver started to progress upwards during the '70s, the bags of 40% halves became a burden rather than a good hedge because they were harder for the smelters to process and the premiums dropped or went negative because of that.
Once silver rose above the long-established price of $1.29/oz. the metal became worth more than face value and the incentive to remove coins from circulation got greater the higher spot rose and the 90% coins started disappearing faster. Over the years, full bags of silver dollars gained premiums and became less available. Later, the same thing happened with halves. Now, full bags aren't the typical trading lot size - it's more like $250 face or $100 face bags.
I never pulled any silver from circulation as a speculation because I didn't have much money at that age, but any coin collector back then could tell you about the potential for profit if you had the money.
I knew it would happen.
Thanks fellas!
When I asked my Dad this he said, “ Mark, I was 25 years old in 1964 with 3 young kids. Silver coins were the least of my concerns.”
It did prompt another conversation which I just learned. My Dad said that when he went for his mortgage of $12,900 in 1960 there was a snafu at closing and the mortgage was going to be almost $2.00 more that they were quoted. My Dad said he walked away. I told him he was a very shrewd negotiator. He said no, he really couldn’t afford the extra $2.00 dollars. It made me take pause. The bank made it right and they got the house. My Dad still lives in it. I also did not know that back then is your wife worked they wouldn’t count it as income for your mortgage application. They just assumed that she would have kids and be a stay at home mom.
So a 30 year mortgage of $12,900 with interest rates at 4% back then would come out to what? $80 some bucks a month? $2.00 was a deal breaker. I’m humbled
Mark
Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
@Justacommeman
You ask a myriad of questions, and I will appreciate and learn from the answers provided HERE from our educated members, thanks for posting such an insightful question
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Here are some stories. (Link below) One of them was about a vending guy. I was a vending guy in 1983 and would end up in the counting room once in a while to count all the coins from 8 routes. I found silver every single time I was in that room. I asked the regular guy who said he didn't have enough time to look for them.
As a kid, roll hunting in our small northern Wisconsin town, I found silver all the time. (approximately 1974-1979)
In 1985 I met my soon to be wife, sold everything I owned, including my coin collection, to wine and dine her. I would do it again, as long as I could dig through that collection one last time with my current brain!
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http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/general-discussion/333771-when-did-people-start-saving-keeping-their-silver-coins-1965-a.html
I don't recall going out and trying to find the full silver coins once clad appeared on the scene, but in our household there was an effort to segregate out the silver coins when they appeared and then hold onto them rather than spend them. I still have handfuls of those coins that were accumulated years ago - mostly the half dollars. There just seemed to be fewer and fewer of the half dollars with silver content in circulation so they stuck out.
I was in High School in 1965 and a friend of mine who was also a coin collector waited forever to "get" a clad coin. If I remember correctly I "finally" got a clad quarter in change at the pool hall. If we would only have known.
Lafayette Grading Set
It just seems that someone back then on the internet would have given everyone a heads up. Chat rooms must have sucked back then
m
Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
Around the 1969-1971 time frame, my older brother would come home from work each day and throw a pocket full of change onto his dresser. I was allowed to pick through his change, and pull out the silver dimes. I did it daily, and it was not uncommon to find one or two 90% Mercs/Roosies in a group of 10-15 dimes. What a blast that was! Unfortunately I had to pass on the 90% quarters and halves...this was a dimes-only agreement.
Dave
I used to trade my sister who is 14 months younger all my nickels for all her dimes under the guise that the nickels were bigger and worth more. I later became her financial advisor at the age of 7
mark
Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
I first became aware of the change (no pun intended) from silver to clad in the late 1960s, about the time that I started grade school.
At that time I would save all the "gift money" that was given to me in the form of birthday cards and whatnot and would examine my father's bag of change every evening when he would come home. He was a milkman who ran a cash business where folks would leave cash in the little milk boxes outside of their homes or apartments and he would come by before dawn to pick up the money and leave fresh milk and other dairy products. Each night there was perhaps $10-$20 in new change for me to go through and I would find a silver dime or two every week and perhaps one silver quarter per month. However, 90% silver JFK halves could still be found rather regularly into the early 1970s and the 40% silver JFK halves were a regular occurrence until at least the bicentennial. I would even get a silver certificate every month or so along with dozens of Wheat cents each night. Oddly enough, in all the years I looked through his change there was only a single IHC that ever turned up.
In honor of the memory of Cpl. Michael E. Thompson
I was rather proud, in 8th grade, 1965, to show off my spanking new clad quarter. My social studies teacher held it delicately...rotating it in the light...crowing to the class about its luster and beauty.
And then blithely, with callous indifference, abruptly threw it to the floor, to hear its ring.
I was horrified! How could he do that to what was surely irreplaceable?
I was 13 and never forgave him.
Lance.
Good set of questions justacommeman, interesting answers all, interesting hobby where you sometimes can't collect what you want to collect because you have to live and survive...thanks rln
I also experienced that transitional period in U.S. coinage, when I was 7-9 years old and we lived in the suburbs of Miami. My paternal grandmother, who was a coin collector, stridently encouraged me to go to banks and buy rolls of quarters and halves, in order to pick out coins containing silver. This had a major impact on my interest in coins. Silver coins disappeared more quickly from change obtained in big cities than from rural areas. In fact, before moving to Arizona in 2007, we lived in Logan, UT, and I occasionally received silver U.S. coin in change as late as 2005 or so.
RMR: 'Wer, wenn ich schriee, hörte mich denn aus der Engel Ordnungen?'
CJ: 'No one!' [Ain't no angels in the coin biz]
I am not old enough....
I did manage to ask my grandfather before he passed what this transition was like, since he owned a grocery store and change was always in use. The silver dollars were set aside first, but it wasn't until clad appeared that he, my grandmother, my mother, and other family members just socked all the silver away, replacing it with clad from the banks. He was well-off enough to not mind setting aside the silver. Unfortunately not all of it made it until I started collecting in the 1980s, but I did inherit his accumulation. My Mother's silver was more modestly acquired (she was working as a teacher) but she had jars and old coin purses filled with it.
When I was 10 or so in the late 1980s I can still remember silver coins frequently coming into the store's cash register, and my grandfather would set it all aside for me, along with any novelty stuff (Canadians, which no one seemed to know had silver in that area) like world coins and odd paper money (old silver certificates, legal tender, and even old federal reserve notes and a couple national bank notes). It makes sense that some of this was from kids raiding grandma's coin jar, but there was enough of a steady stream given the sheer volume of change then that silver coins were pretty much a daily occurrence. This dropped off by the early 1990s, when my grandfather still gave me the coins but I no longer was interested (baseball cards had become the new thing for me). By the time the store closed in 1995, there was virtually none.
Got IHCs and Buffalo nickels occasionally, and Wheaties were too frequent for him to set aside, so I would pick over the pennies for that stuff.
What kills me are the stories of the "yellow coins" my Mother saw as a child in the store's safe that were dispersed over the years before I was born. Payment in coin was accepted for the accounts "on credit" that some families had, and I managed to find a few old receipts--for $2-3 for a bunch of stuff--which was a lot of money in those days. No CCs, so everything paid in coins. My grandfather's younger sister passed away in 2016 at 101, and I asked her how people paid in those days (1928-1950 or so), and she said they paid what they could, when they could.
As of the 1940 census, my grandfather, grandmother, and uncle were listed, with occupation as clerk in "retail grocery" and annual wages he reported as $800:
Gonna get me a $50 Octagonal someday. Some. Day.
I was 22 in 1965 and an active collector. Making only $80 per week, I couldn't afford to sock away a lot of silver, but I frequently bought rolls to search at the local banks and saved the premium dates. I think it was late 1965 when I encountered my first clad quarters, three of them in an otherwise unremarkable roll of 40. They stood out from the silver quarters due to their bright copper edges. By the following year clad dimes and quarters had become commonplace. My only silver "hoard" at the time consisted of 10 rolls of 1964 Kennedy halves, which I acquired at face value from a bank and sold a few years later for a small profit.
My Adolph A. Weinman signature
I did !!!
I remember dropping my first clad quarter (I was 7) and after hearing the strange tone turning to my friend with me and saying "I think the barber gypped us!"
I started to collect in late 1964/early 1965. though I have no memory of a "warning" or "heads-up" that a change was coming we were at least aware of it in my household. around 1968 I started a Cleveland Press paper route and was pulling out silver from my collection money. my father was the Super at a modest machine shop and took care of the vending machines, he also pulled out all the silver coins at that time. Dad was a smart guy despite his limited education, he worked the crossword puzzle, the Jumbles and read the entire paper every evening after supper.
if it was in the news he knew about it.
from a common sense perspective, there was a 5-6 year phase in from 1965-1970 when things changed to silver Half-Dollars only, even the most naïve citizen probably noticed that something was going on.
I lived just north of New York City, and my dad rode the train to Grand Central Station. Circa 1967 1968 the price of silver was high enough to make it worth while to pull the silver. I would stop at various banks, turn in my "working capital" about $50 to $100 (a huge sum back then) for primarily quarters, open the rolls, pull the silver, rebuild the rolls, and do the same at the next bank.
In the NY Times, a dealer listed how much over face they would pay, and had a kiosk in Grand Central, and my dad would drop it off, and bring me the money, which went into purchasing more.
The first clads I encountered in 1965 (I was already a coin collector back then) were treasured more than silver. There was a rumor that if the clad "layers" were not straight, there was a bonus the dealers would pay for the coins, so they were hoarded.
Uncle Sam made me an offer I could not refuse, thus ended the search for silver coins. I did note that US silver coins were far more plentiful overseas, as it was not worth dragging them back stateside, and there was no premium for them. There was also scads of them off base, in every flea market, etc. along with all the other "foreign" coins. The big run up in silver prices at the end of the 70's, killed off all those coins.
The last hoard I ever found was in a small town in the Azores, at a shop with coins, toasters, blenders, paper goods, etc. This was maybe 4 years ago, and I do not remember exactly, but I believe he was asking 6 - 8 coins per euro, some 1 cent to $1 dollar face US coins. There was lots of US quarters, some Sac $1 and SBA's, half dollars, etc. There were some 40% in the mix. At that price, even the quarters were below face. My next stop was Florida, so I bought all he had in the quarters and up group, which was a large pile. I thought about the Canadians, but passed on them. All of them had a greenish tint, too many years sitting in a high salt oceanic air environment. I dumped them all within an hour or so getting back in the US.
I was a young father, just out of the service.... and saving silver was a luxury I could not afford at that time... after a major move from Maine to NYS (employment), my financial status improved enough to start saving some silver dimes...But then, life happened, and my world travels began...and coins were an on again, off again hobby for quite some time....I did collect some foreign coins when living in Europe and the West Indies...still have some...Since I spent a lot of time out of country during that period, the change from silver to clad was not really apparent to me... Though it was very noticeable when I returned... (i.e. What is this flimsy stuff?)...
Cheers, RickO
I was a 12 year old paperboy at that time......handled all kinds of change.....unfortunately,I was clueless about silver
I was a Senior in High School in 65 so I didn't have the funds to pull silver coins from circulation. But there was some silver in change for a long time. Heck you can still find a few from time to time. I was a collector going through rolls filling holes in my Whitman books and could not afford to keep extra silver. I remember once in 63 I bought several rolls of Nickels and when I got home I realized 1 roll was shorter than the others and thought I had been ripped off. Turned out that roll was ALL Buffaloes. A lot of them didn't have dates and were worn badly causing the roll to be short in length, but there was a full 40 of them. Those were the days. You could even find Barber and Walker Halves in rolls from the bank.
Just a kid. We lived in rural PA, near the newly constructed Kinzua dam. That massive dam and its huge tanner gates are still a vivid image. Roads going into water were sometimes found. Our house bordered the Allegheny National Forest; I did a lot of camping with my brother. Like the OP, my parents had little ones (4 of us), so funding was not available. I had started collecting, but money limited searching to penny rolls (occasionally a nickel roll when I was flush). I did have a pal (the lunch lady) at school. Lunches were paid and the coins went into a cigar box. The lady would keep the oldest quarter and I could have it (when able to afford it - which would require passing on the dessert (10c) for a couple of days). There was a piggy bank (which I now possess as a family keepsake) where the silver found by my parents went. It was emptied years ago and rolled. I still have the rolls with my Mom's handwriting on them. Good memories, thanks for the post. Our campsite was way cool - we had logs arranged by the fire pit. I had plenty of time to perfect the roasting of marshmallows.
I was 16 years old when it started and upon the silver being phased out, it at least contained 40% silver in the half dollars. But it was very easy to buy rolls and get mostly silver in the rolls for the first year or so. My favorite uncle had given me my first Morgan silver dollar when I was 10 and he advised I get as much silver out of the market as I could. So weekly trips to several different banks for rolls was my weekend pleasure. I worked at Tennessee Eastman construction for the summers between highschool and spent most of my earnings on silver. By 1970 I had a little over $900 face value and was lucky enough to hold onto it until 1980 when I sold the silver during the silver boom. A dealer I knew met several of us sellers at a motel in Abingdon, VA to make the transition from silver to paper. He must have had at least $100,000 in cash as he had so many coming it was by appt only for 10 minutes at a time. He was that busy. Everyone was nervous as could be for several reasons. Looking back it was interesting times for silver which I feel drove the coin collecting market. Every one I knew was collecting and we had a coin show within 50 miles every single weekend. Don't know if there was a missed weekend. It was a wonderful time to be in the hobby. I truly miss going to these coin/knife shows all up and down I-81 in Tn and Va. Prices were changing so fast, a lot of dishonesty occurred, but I was lucky and had 3 or 4 dealers I had dealt with for 5 or so years that were extremely honest and helpful to us beginners. Their advice still lingers in my memory to this day.
Jim
When a man who is honestly mistaken hears the truth, he will either quit being mistaken or cease to be honest....Abraham Lincoln
Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.....Mark Twain
I had a paper route in 1964 (13 years old) and 1965. I remember always stopping at the local coin store to look what he had on display. Back then, I only collected nickels. I also remember the big blackout of New York City, where I was in his store when the lights were going out. He locked up the store right after that. I also vaguely remember newspaper ads claiming he had one million dollars in silver dollars. I wonder what he did with them.
Another story is that my father had a factory where he was permitted to buy gold. I remember him having 4 or 5 gold bars when it was $35 an ounce. We were poor and had to sell those bars for cash. What might have been if we kept those bars?
I had only become a "real" coin collector in 1965. Everything before was "playing around." I'm thinking I read about the change from silver to clad in either Coin World or Numismatic News.
Because the Johnson administration stated that the new coins would circulate alongside the the older coins (no redemption) and they would both work in vending machines, people didn't have a big sense of urgency about saving silver coins prior to 1968. There was a greater rush to exchange silver certificates for silver before that window was going to be closed. If they said that there would be a redemption and withdrawal of silver coins, then it would have sparked a speculative rush on them.
It was only after silver started to rise to a profit point that the coins were quickly removed from circulation. That started around 1968.
In 1965 we thought nothing to have silver dimes, quarters and an occasional half dollar in our pockets, it was just normal money. I was in high school and had a part time job so I always had money to spend, models (car/airplane) going to the movies (drive in/theaters) bowling just having a good time. In the fall of 1965 I saw the first clad quarter. We examined it noting the sandwich. flipped it with little to no 'ring' and it seemed 'dead' in appearance as it did not have any of the qualities of a silver quarter but spent just like it, so that was OK.
Being a teenager during this transition was not all that important at the time, by the end of the year clad dimes and quarters were already common place and life went on, no big deal even as a YN.
"Keep your malarkey filter in good operating order" -Walter Breen
I remember there being no particular concern or general interest in the last part of 1965 when the first clad coins hit the local bank. My impression was that few people could tell the difference between silver and clad. Very few people earned enough extra to put away silver coins - the possible holding period was too long to tie up cash. The prohibition on melting coins was in force, but I think the general attitude of adults was that it was self-defeating to destroy coins needed for commerce, then expect the government to "fix" it. (The adults were all products of the Great Depression and WW-II. Their attitudes were different than today's adults.)
As a coin collector I continued getting rolls of halves and quarters to search for better dates/mints. But could not hold on to much.
My perspective on this...
I started actively searching change of relatives and friends in 1968...started actively "collecting" in 1969.
While I didn't see "roll quantities" of coins, I saw quite a few and everyone got tired of me asking to go through their wallets, purses, etc., but after a while, the grandparents would just come over to me and unload a bunch of change on the table, and I didn't even have to ask.
Quarters and dimes were damn near 100% 1965/66/67 as were dimes.
I recall that the 1968 dated issues were very late in appearing in our area.
Even then (this was in East St. Louis, IL) silver was very scarce and I found relatively few. Very few. A silver quarter would have been a bonanza.
40% halves were common, and I saved them when I could afford to.
50c was a big deal in 1968/69.
I don't remember the switchover as it was before I was born, but as a budding coin collector in the mid-70s I wondered why I never found dimes or quarters from before 1965. I was the kid doing whatever to make money and save it, I remember going to the bank and buying a $50 bill just to show off. I do remember seeing 40% halves in teller trays ca. 1978-9 just before the big run-up in prices and my mother told me I couldn't buy them because I was a pest.
I was 10 in 1964 and had been collecting since I was 7. My grandfather got me started when he gave us a Morgan Silver Dollar on each birthday. I had 10 Morgans by 1964 and was working on my Blue Whitman Folders at that time.
We heard about the switch in the summer of 1964 when they were talking about the new CLAD Kennedy Half Dollars. In 1965 I remember it being a big thing and most people we knew started pulling the silver coins. From 1965-1968 my friends and I would ride our bikes to town on Saturday and buy rolls of dimes, quarters and half dollars. We would keep as much silver as we could. We got Mercury Dimes, early Roosevelt Dimes, SLQ and early Washington Quarters and WL and Franklin Halfs. Found "War" Nickels in nickel rolls. One day I ask for a roll of dimes and the teller gave me the roll. I went over to the table we used and opened it....it was a whole roll of Mercury Dimes, mostly from the 1940s but in XF-AU condition. I went and got another roll but my luck ended with just that one roll. It didn't take long for most of the silver coins to be pulled, by 1970 we found a few silver coins now and then but not many.
At that time (1965) I loved Washington Quarters, to open a roll and find a 1936-D in Fine condition was the bomb. I dreamed of owning the 1932-D and 1932-S. Man, those were the days. There was no F12, F15, VF20......it was just Fine +.
This was all before my time, but I love reading these stories!
My YouTube Channel
I was in high school in 1965 and wrote a term paper for a history class on the transition from silver to clad coins.
I received an 'A' grade on the paper and recycled it for a junior college class.
Half dollar coins were in circulation then and I do remember getting Walking Liberty halves in change every so often.
The Mysterious Egyptian Magic Coin
Coins in Movies
Coins on Television
I was only 10 in 1964 and I also don't remember a big surge in hoarding silver. For the most part, there was no difference in our house. Mom was saving quarters and halves in a glass jar in hopes of getting one of those new-fangled dishwashers that you load up and push a button to run.
With respect to coins, I could only afford to collect cents and nickels from circulation. Even dimes were expensive to me back then.
Now my grandparents saw it differently. They were pretty active collectors of silver for their collections and also hoarded it because they didn't see much value in the clad coinage. Not sure how they ever made out on their silver hoards - they never told me....
“In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock." - Thomas Jefferson
My digital cameo album 1950-64 Cameos - take a look!
Lots of former paperboys here, myself included.
I used to love collecting day....never knew what you were going to find......if you could find your customers, that is.......quite a few were slippery even back then.
It was fun though to threaten to cut a customer off if they didn't produce cash.
I was old enough to look for silver in pocket change within several years of the switch. It was always exciting to find it, and I always saved it, but it was not as exciting as it might sound. The premium was not huge, and then there was the issue of what to do with it. A random smattering of silver coins tied up valuable resources that a kid might want to be more disposable.
If this was happening today I would be happy to stack random silver coins (and I do), but back then it was almost (but not quite) like pulling wheat cents out of circulation today. You feel you need to do it but then wonder what you are supposed to do with them. (Disposing of a small silver stockpile was not as easy then as it is now).
I dont remember why I didnt just look at the date but remember I used to look at edge and and you see copper on edge of clad coins and I saved the silver coins I was just a kid
Senior in High School and guess what. The little ladies over ruled anything else that happened during that period.
Sure missed the Boat though.
Ken
Your story comes closest to mine. I didn't start becoming interested in collecting till around 1967. Living in an Indiana suburb of Chicago, I recall silver disappearing quite fast. Before I "woke up", the transition didn't set off any alarm bells for me or my family.
We all knew that silver was being replaced, but it wasn't big, earth shattering news.
I was 14 when I woke up to the importance of the clad change. It was already going on 3 years since the changeover. My family was middle class, living with my dad's mom (my grandmother) in her house.
There was never a whole lot of money around. I would go to the local Savings and Loan and buy rolls of nickels and Cents. I completed my 1941-1967 Lincoln Cents Whitman (I had to buy the 1955-S) out of circulation. Same thing with the Jefferson Nickels (except for 1950-D, I couldn't afford it).
I never had the money to buy rolls of dimes or quarters, so whatever silver I found came from circulation. It wasn't a lot. Where I lived, silver disappeared fast.
So that's it, really. I vividly remember purchasing the 1968 PDS new Lincoln Cents at the local coin shop. Those shiny, new, mintmarked coins were a big deal to me!
It wasn't the best time to start collecting coins, but I suffered through it.
Here I am today.
Sure doesn't seem like that long ago, but I guess it really is.
Pete
Tempus Fugit @BuffaloIronTail .
I too remember buying 1969-S cents.
They were a big honkin' deal.
I still have one I drooled over at a show that my wonderful Great Uncle took me to.
Poor guy, he paid $1 for it.
That's gotta be about $750 in today's money.
I was 20 in 1964 and remember the transition over the next few years. Some time in 1965 I remember trading $1.10 or $1.30 (my records say $1.30 but my foggy memory says $1.10) in silver coins for a 1880-S uncirculated silver dollar with a dealer (A. J. Elio or E. J. Alio or something like that?) He would run mail bid auctions and “for trade” ads in the back of Coin World all the time. When the coin showed up I thought it was the most amazing Morgan dollar I had ever seen. Being a novice at that time I thought it might have actually been a branch mint proof, Despite my dipping it at least once (stupid me) back then it now resides in my Morgan dollar set in a NGC MS64PL slab.
As the silver coins began to disappear from circulation and the price of silver continued to rise dealers were paying good premiums for “junk” silver. It was illegal to melt Canadian silver coins in Canada but wasn’t illegal to melt them in the US. A dealer I did business with in Albany NY had a customer that drove down from Canada with a spare tire full of Canadian silver coins on a regular basis.
When I lived in Rochester NY in the mid-70s I would buy 90% silver from an older woman whose family owned a vending machine company. I ran an ad in the local paper buying coins and she called me one day. I went to her house and she had maybe 20 rolls of dimes. I counted them out in front of her on her kitchen table and there were a few extras, maybe a dollar or so. She must have been so impressed that I told her about the extras or I must have been paying so much more than everyone else that she started calling me on a regular basis. Eventually she would have me come over, open up the secret hiding place behind the front panel on the clothes dryer and pull out bags of coins. I would pay her for what she said she was giving me and we would make up any difference on the next deal. Once I remember buying so much on a Friday that I was so worried about losing money over the weekend if prices dropped by Monday that I called Sam Sloat in Westport Connecticut and drove the coins over on Saturday morning. Probably talking about a couple hundred dollars either way but that was big bucks back in those days and gas was about 25.9 per gallon so driving back and forth to Connecticut was no big deal.
Not silver related but by August 1965 I was 21 and married and like Mark’s father had purchased my first house. The payment was $114.50 a month, $79.50 P&I, $35.00 tax and insurance escrow. I probably would have backed out also if they wanted another $2.00 a month. My new wife and I sweat bullets when we signed the mortgage papers hoping we would be able to afford the payments every month.
it's crackers to slip a rozzer the dropsy in snide
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I started collecting in 1961 and in the mid 'sixties couldn't wait to see the first "sandwich" coins. That novelty wore off quickly after which I wished they would return to silver. I started pulling silver from change around 1967 but, unfortunately, didn't save a whole lot.
Great reminiscences!
Whippersnapper!!!!
You're still green behind the ears!
(Today is National Mixed Metaphor Day.)