(I was 7. I do remember even a quarter had purchasing power back then. I was walking to school one day, a couple of guys in suits flipped me a quarter and told me to tell my parent to vote for <politician's name deleted>. Whatta deal...)
I remember when Twinkies went from 10 cents a pack of 2.......to 12 cents! It screwed up my whole economic structure!
(I was 7. I do remember even a quarter had purchasing power back then. I was walking to school one day, a couple of guys in suits flipped me a quarter and told me to tell my parent to vote for <politician's name deleted>. Whatta deal...)
I remember when Twinkies went from 10 cents a pack of 2.......to 12 cents! It screwed up my whole economic structure!
yes and a bottle of coke went from 5 cents to 10 cents. that wrecked me for months on end
I was 22 in 1965, and frequently searching silver rolls from a bank for scarce dates. In late 1965 the clads started showing up in rolls of quarters. Just a couple per roll at first, then gradually more and more. My roll searching days pretty much came to a halt a few years later.
I was 4 in 1964, helped my older brothers deliver the local newspaper.
I do remember sorting out change, tossing the clad ones into the 'do not save pile'.
Also remember the first time I ever saw a color tv!
Was 1966, always visited my Aunt and Grandmother every Saturday.
Amazed that the morning cartoons were in color, I do remember the remote being 'hard wired', a cable went to the tv, pressing the remote activated a motor, 'clunk-clunk-clunk'.
I'm sure Blessed that I grew up when I did!
And the Space Program, led to a great career in electronics.
That last paragraph is interesting, DuPont use's a explosive force to bond the layers and Olin & Texas Instruments use's a rolling process...........wonder if there is any way to tell the difference
I was only a few years old, but I remember my parents still getting silver in change, even Mercury dimes, until the late 60's. They gave them to me and I thought they were "rare". Unfortunately I didn't keep them.
Great transactions with oih82w8, JasonGaming, Moose1913.
@ColonelJessup said:
I got a VF 1831 50c in change at the candy store in 1956, Went nicely with my very big-league (bigly?) XF 1914 QE at $14.25 of Bar Mitzvah money the next year, Then Playboy started publishing
Hell....I couldn't touch the Bar Mitzvah money until I was in my forties.
RE: "That last paragraph is interesting, DuPont use's a explosive force to bond the layers and Olin & Texas Instruments use's a rolling process...........wonder if there is any way to tell the difference."
Explosive bonding is explained and illustrated in the upcoming article about International Nickel Company (Inco) private pattern pieces - still in research. Several planchets made by DuPont are illustrated along with measurements for them. An analysis by Bell Labs in Nov 1965 showed that explosive bonded metal was equivalent to rolled stock. However, the technique was more expensive than others and eventually reverted to small batch and specialty uses. It remains in daily use for some purposes - especially for metals/materials that cannot be otherwise bonded.
@ColonelJessup said:
I got a VF 1831 50c in change at the candy store in 1956, Went nicely with my very big-league (bigly?) XF 1914 QE at $14.25 of Bar Mitzvah money the next year, Then Playboy started publishing
Hell....I couldn't touch the Bar Mitzvah money until I was in my forties.
I came along after silver disappeared but do remember when I was a young kid in the mid 70s wondering why I never found dimes or quarters dated before 1965. By that time halves had largely disappeared from circulation (Oswald killed Kennedy and Kennedy killed the half). Then my father gave me the whole spiel about how silver was removed from our money and it became a fiat currency. A few months later we travelled to his boyhood home in the midwest and he let me search through the coffee can full of coins he had saved when he was in college in the early '60s - SILVER - the best was the 1878-S Morgan on top of the pile.
Tir nam beann, nan gleann, s'nan gaisgeach ~ Saorstat Albanaich a nis!
Remember finding a couple of worn standing Liberty quarters and getting a Buffalo in change from the ice cream man. Two years later the first clad quarter showed up and I traded a couple of older solver quarters for it as I thought it was cool. I got numerous Kennedy's in change when I had a paper rout and my next door neighbor wanted me to keep them for him and I did. Saw him a few years ago at a funeral and he still members it.
best trades i made were taking greenbacks into Mexico when on vacation with my parents and the bank would gladly exchange Morgans 1/1 to get rid of the bags of silver dollars they had.
(I was 7. I do remember even a quarter had purchasing power back then. I was walking to school one day, a couple of guys in suits flipped me a quarter and told me to tell my parent to vote for <politician's name deleted>. Whatta deal...)
I remember when Twinkies went from 10 cents a pack of 2.......to 12 cents! It screwed up my whole economic structure!
Same with comic books graphic novels. I only wish I kept the darn things. (I was shocked to see some of the prices of comic books today...)
I remember grocery stores/hardware stores/bakeries/Mom & Pop stores all had little signs out by the cash register, "Please pay in exact change." because there was actually a coin shortage and they would rather you pay .88 cents in exact change rather than give you .11 change from say a $1 bill.
Most women had coin purses as did some men, little apex type window fold out change pouches.
Yes. As late as mid 1968, I was able to pull as much silver coinage as I could afford to keep. Much of this came from small town banks in PA. I recall at one time having more than 5,000 dimes. During this period I also found an uncirc 1918S SLQ and a full roll of Walkers.
I was 7 years old in '64. My three brothers were all 10+ years older than I was, so they all had jobs. They would come home from work and throw their change on the counter, and I was allowed to pick through it (I was into numismatics at an early age). Their rule was I could keep some of the nickels or dimes. So I basically just pulled out the Mercury dimes because they were 'different looking'. I wasn't doing it because of the silver content (that came later in the 60s). It was not uncommon to sort through 100 dimes and have 10-15 of them being Mercs. Man that was fun! Occasionally I'd even find a semi-key Merc. Franklin halves were fairly common too, but I wasn't allowed to steal those. That was BIG MONEY in those days.
Dave
Always looking for original, better date VF20-VF35 Barber quarters and halves, and a quality beer.
Yes, I was 10 and a Lincoln Cent collector. My allowance was 25 cents a week. If my net worth had been more than a dollar I would have hoarded silver coins.
Yes I was around then but in March of 1964 I moved to California from the Midwest and so my new life here drew me away from thinking about coin collecting or changes in the silver content of coins Etc for quite a few years.
I never thought that growing old would happen so fast. - Jim
When the clads started coming out, I thought the waviness of the clad layers was significant, so I kept them, til I had no more room and started dumping them.
Circa 1967 1968, I would ride my bike to the bank, turn in my coins, get more, normally about $50 +/- worth, pull the silvers, off to the next bank, and keep going. Some weeks I had a LARGE float amount, if the paper route lady did not pick up my route money until the next week. My mom would also drop and exchange at banks too far for my bike.
Since my dad worked in New York City, and rode the train into work, there was a place in Grand Central Station that bought the silvers. I would check the New York Times for the buy price, like 1.2x 1.3, etc. When it hit 2x, it was great, in 1968, but then it dropped, and, IIRC, by 1971, there was no longer any premium for silver coins, as the price of silver had dropped to around $1.31 and the "break even" point for silver coins was around $1.29 or so, someone smarter can put in the exact numbers.
Then Uncle Sam noticed me, and coin collecting took an effective 25 year break with a few purchases, but mostly just raising a family.
I do remember picking up "special" notes overseas, gold and silver certificates, North Africa, Hawaii, etc, that could be bought for a discount from face, as they just wanted FRESH US currency. There was also some real numismatic sleepers in the coin bins at Asian and European type open air markets, but all the silver disappeared by 1980.
Most of the changes were in 1966 and 1967. The withdrawal of silver certificates in 1966 was a big deal. As RWB posted it was late 1965 and early 1966 that the CN coins were issued. I don't think a premium grew until 1967 or even 1968. Most people looked at buying silver bags as a long term hold that might pay off, but there was no downside, so why not?
@grip said:
I was 24 and we just lost JFK (RIP) Than I received orders to defend our country.
Nothing good for me to remember in the following three years.
@mustangmanbob said:
When the clads started coming out, I thought the waviness of the clad layers was significant, so I kept them, til I had no more room and started dumping them.
Circa 1967 1968, I would ride my bike to the bank, turn in my coins, get more, normally about $50 +/- worth, pull the silvers, off to the next bank, and keep going. Some weeks I had a LARGE float amount, if the paper route lady did not pick up my route money until the next week. My mom would also drop and exchange at banks too far for my bike.
Since my dad worked in New York City, and rode the train into work, there was a place in Grand Central Station that bought the silvers. I would check the New York Times for the buy price, like 1.2x 1.3, etc. When it hit 2x, it was great, in 1968, but then it dropped, and, IIRC, by 1971, there was no longer any premium for silver coins, as the price of silver had dropped to around $1.31 and the "break even" point for silver coins was around $1.29 or so, someone smarter can put in the exact numbers.
Then Uncle Sam noticed me, and coin collecting took an effective 25 year break with a few purchases, but mostly just raising a family.
I do remember picking up "special" notes overseas, gold and silver certificates, North Africa, Hawaii, etc, that could be bought for a discount from face, as they just wanted FRESH US currency. There was also some real numismatic sleepers in the coin bins at Asian and European type open air markets, but all the silver disappeared by 1980.
Neat story......thanks for sharing and a thanks for serving.
In '64 I was 10. My friends and I would ride our bikes to town and go to the banks. We had our blue Whitman's and worked on them. We would go through the rolls and get what we needed. One day I was working on my Roosevelt Dime Whitman and bought a roll of dimes. Went over to the table we used and opened them up. They were all Mercury dimes, common date '40s in VF-AU condition. Put them in my pocket and went to get another roll but they were all Roosevelt's. You could still find WL Half's in rolls back then, plenty of Franklin's, Mercury Dimes, Silver Nickels, Buffalo Nickels, Washington Quarters from the '30s and all the Wheaties you wanted. Found a few SLQs, Barber coinage and Indian cents but they were usually worn to AG at best.
Those were the days. No TPG, no Ebay, no MS this or MS that. It was "that looks VF+ to me".
Then they came out with the Silver Kennedy in '64....GEM BU modern crap !!
Yep - but didn't have the resources on a 9 yo budget to accumulate much. Saved what I could but when the opportunity came around, cherry bombs were much more interesting and I spent most of it.
Did save $5 in 50c pieces that I got with my grandfather in Elliott, Iowa - we stopped in the bank on the way home from his haircut and I spotted them - still have 'em - nice memories of visits with the Grandparents.
"My friends who see my collection sometimes ask what something costs. I tell them and they are in awe at my stupidity." (Baccaruda, 12/03).I find it hard to believe that he (Trump) rushed to some hotel to meet girls of loose morals, although ours are undoubtedly the best in the world. (Putin 1/17) Gone but not forgotten. IGWT, Speedy, Bear, BigE, HokieFore, John Burns, Russ, TahoeDale, Dahlonega, Astrorat, Stewart Blay, Oldhoopster, Broadstruck, Ricko, Big Moose, Cardinal.
Just started wearing long pants and began a fledgling collection. Alas, my parents could only let me save a few coins each week out of the budget for my collection.
Q: When does a collector become a numismatist?
A: The year they spend more on their library than their coin collection.
A numismatist is judged more on the content of their library than the content of their cabinet.
Were you around when gasoline was 26c a gallon?
Well, when our beloved government decided to screw you and remove all intrinsic value from YOUR money, that's when gas became no longer 26c a gallon.
The Arabs didn't have to give a crap if we were going too broke to continue with real money.
@topstuf said:
Were you around when gasoline was 26c a gallon?
Well, when our beloved government decided to screw you and remove all intrinsic value from YOUR money, that's when gas became no longer 26c a gallon.
The Arabs didn't have to give a crap if we were going too broke to continue with real money.
Can't blame em.
Yeah....but your hupmobile was getting 7 miles per.
Cheapest I ever paid for gas was 17.9 cents per gallon. Michigan did not tax its gasoline to encourage people to buy cars. This was around 1971.
Numismatist. 50 year member ANA. Winner of four ANA Heath Literary Awards; three Wayte and Olga Raymond Literary Awards; Numismatist of the Year Award 2009, and Lifetime Achievement Award 2020. Winner numerous NLG Literary Awards.
@CaptHenway said:
Cheapest I ever paid for gas was 17.9 cents per gallon. Michigan did not tax its gasoline to encourage people to buy cars. This was around 1971
That musta been for ethol
The bitterness of "Poor Quality" is remembered long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten.
I was about 6. Too young to understand what was going on, and was only filling blue Whitman folders from circulation with mostly pennies & nickels.
By the time I really started collecting dimes & quarters, clad was already out, and I would walk with my grandparents downtown to "Smelter's Row" to look thru coffee cans full of "melt" silver dimes & quarters. Being young & on a limited allowance, I found the 4x face to be somewhat limiting as to how much I could buy. And I stuck to just Roosies & Mercs, as well as Washingtons.
I really wish I had expanded to SLQ's & Barbers when I had the chance at reasonable prices (never did, as a result), and started collecting halves & silver dollars back then, instead of much later at much higher prices..........
In '64 I was six years old. I lost my father the year before to a vehicle accident, life was never the same after that for me as a kid, spent most of '64 in a fog. It wasn't until late 60's that I discovered silver coins could still be found in change/rolls. Thanks to helping my friend on his paper route.
Comments
yes and they were still minting franklin halfs (fwiw)
I remember when Twinkies went from 10 cents a pack of 2.......to 12 cents!
It screwed up my whole economic structure! 
yes and a bottle of coke went from 5 cents to 10 cents. that wrecked me for months on end
I was 22 in 1965, and frequently searching silver rolls from a bank for scarce dates. In late 1965 the clads started showing up in rolls of quarters. Just a couple per roll at first, then gradually more and more. My roll searching days pretty much came to a halt a few years later.
My Adolph A. Weinman signature
I was 4 in 1964, helped my older brothers deliver the local newspaper.
I do remember sorting out change, tossing the clad ones into the 'do not save pile'.
Also remember the first time I ever saw a color tv!
Was 1966, always visited my Aunt and Grandmother every Saturday.
Amazed that the morning cartoons were in color, I do remember the remote being 'hard wired', a cable went to the tv, pressing the remote activated a motor, 'clunk-clunk-clunk'.
I'm sure Blessed that I grew up when I did!
And the Space Program, led to a great career in electronics.
That last paragraph is interesting, DuPont use's a explosive force to bond the layers and Olin & Texas Instruments use's a rolling process...........wonder if there is any way to tell the difference
Steve
I was only a few years old, but I remember my parents still getting silver in change, even Mercury dimes, until the late 60's. They gave them to me and I thought they were "rare". Unfortunately I didn't keep them.
Great transactions with oih82w8, JasonGaming, Moose1913.
Hell....I couldn't touch the Bar Mitzvah money until I was in my forties.
RE: "That last paragraph is interesting, DuPont use's a explosive force to bond the layers and Olin & Texas Instruments use's a rolling process...........wonder if there is any way to tell the difference."
Explosive bonding is explained and illustrated in the upcoming article about International Nickel Company (Inco) private pattern pieces - still in research. Several planchets made by DuPont are illustrated along with measurements for them. An analysis by Bell Labs in Nov 1965 showed that explosive bonded metal was equivalent to rolled stock. However, the technique was more expensive than others and eventually reverted to small batch and specialty uses. It remains in daily use for some purposes - especially for metals/materials that cannot be otherwise bonded.
I too was two.
Steve
Heck! Same here -- and I wasn't even Jewish!
Mitzey was the bar tender and always carded me.:)
I came along after silver disappeared but do remember when I was a young kid in the mid 70s wondering why I never found dimes or quarters dated before 1965. By that time halves had largely disappeared from circulation (Oswald killed Kennedy and Kennedy killed the half). Then my father gave me the whole spiel about how silver was removed from our money and it became a fiat currency. A few months later we travelled to his boyhood home in the midwest and he let me search through the coffee can full of coins he had saved when he was in college in the early '60s - SILVER - the best was the 1878-S Morgan on top of the pile.
Yeap
Remember finding a couple of worn standing Liberty quarters and getting a Buffalo in change from the ice cream man. Two years later the first clad quarter showed up and I traded a couple of older solver quarters for it as I thought it was cool. I got numerous Kennedy's in change when I had a paper rout and my next door neighbor wanted me to keep them for him and I did. Saw him a few years ago at a funeral and he still members it.
best trades i made were taking greenbacks into Mexico when on vacation with my parents and the bank would gladly exchange Morgans 1/1 to get rid of the bags of silver dollars they had.
Those days are long gone.
I remember it very well. I was getting a bag every Wednesday from the bank to search for coins that I needed.
Same with comic books graphic novels. I only wish I kept the darn things. (I was shocked to see some of the prices of comic books today...)
I was born in June of 64, so I might have been there but still missed it.
I remember grocery stores/hardware stores/bakeries/Mom & Pop stores all had little signs out by the cash register, "Please pay in exact change." because there was actually a coin shortage and they would rather you pay .88 cents in exact change rather than give you .11 change from say a $1 bill.
Most women had coin purses as did some men, little apex type window fold out change pouches.
"Keep your malarkey filter in good operating order" -Walter Breen
Yes. As late as mid 1968, I was able to pull as much silver coinage as I could afford to keep. Much of this came from small town banks in PA. I recall at one time having more than 5,000 dimes. During this period I also found an uncirc 1918S SLQ and a full roll of Walkers.
Nope, my father was 3 and my mother was not born yet.
Fan of the Oxford Comma
CCAC Representative of the General Public
2021 Young Numismatist of the Year
What a magical time that was!
I was 7 years old in '64. My three brothers were all 10+ years older than I was, so they all had jobs. They would come home from work and throw their change on the counter, and I was allowed to pick through it (I was into numismatics at an early age). Their rule was I could keep some of the nickels or dimes. So I basically just pulled out the Mercury dimes because they were 'different looking'. I wasn't doing it because of the silver content (that came later in the 60s). It was not uncommon to sort through 100 dimes and have 10-15 of them being Mercs. Man that was fun! Occasionally I'd even find a semi-key Merc. Franklin halves were fairly common too, but I wasn't allowed to steal those. That was BIG MONEY in those days.
Dave
Yes, I was 10 and a Lincoln Cent collector. My allowance was 25 cents a week. If my net worth had been more than a dollar I would have hoarded silver coins.
https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/gold/liberty-head-2-1-gold-major-sets/liberty-head-2-1-gold-basic-set-circulation-strikes-1840-1907-cac/alltimeset/268163
Yep-I was 15 and an avid collector in '64.
Yes I was around then but in March of 1964 I moved to California from the Midwest and so my new life here drew me away from thinking about coin collecting or changes in the silver content of coins Etc for quite a few years.
- Jim
Before my time.
Sometimes, it’s better to be LUCKY than good. 🍀 🍺👍
My Full Walker Registry Set (1916-1947):
https://www.ngccoin.com/registry/competitive-sets/16292/
I was saving the new clad quarters until my older brother educated me on what was happening.
Heh...my older brother was also collecting the clad coins.
When the clads started coming out, I thought the waviness of the clad layers was significant, so I kept them, til I had no more room and started dumping them.
Circa 1967 1968, I would ride my bike to the bank, turn in my coins, get more, normally about $50 +/- worth, pull the silvers, off to the next bank, and keep going. Some weeks I had a LARGE float amount, if the paper route lady did not pick up my route money until the next week. My mom would also drop and exchange at banks too far for my bike.
Since my dad worked in New York City, and rode the train into work, there was a place in Grand Central Station that bought the silvers. I would check the New York Times for the buy price, like 1.2x 1.3, etc. When it hit 2x, it was great, in 1968, but then it dropped, and, IIRC, by 1971, there was no longer any premium for silver coins, as the price of silver had dropped to around $1.31 and the "break even" point for silver coins was around $1.29 or so, someone smarter can put in the exact numbers.
Then Uncle Sam noticed me, and coin collecting took an effective 25 year break with a few purchases, but mostly just raising a family.
I do remember picking up "special" notes overseas, gold and silver certificates, North Africa, Hawaii, etc, that could be bought for a discount from face, as they just wanted FRESH US currency. There was also some real numismatic sleepers in the coin bins at Asian and European type open air markets, but all the silver disappeared by 1980.
Most of the changes were in 1966 and 1967. The withdrawal of silver certificates in 1966 was a big deal. As RWB posted it was late 1965 and early 1966 that the CN coins were issued. I don't think a premium grew until 1967 or even 1968. Most people looked at buying silver bags as a long term hold that might pay off, but there was no downside, so why not?
Thank you for serving.
And a thanks to you as well for serving.
Quarters and dimes must have been impossible to come by in 1964-1966
Neat story......thanks for sharing and a thanks for serving.
Parents were in the womb at that time...inherited some coins from their parents...started me in collecting!!!
Yes, and it felt like it wouldn't be fun or interesting anymore to collect something that doesn't have its intrinsic value anymore.
In '64 I was 10. My friends and I would ride our bikes to town and go to the banks. We had our blue Whitman's and worked on them. We would go through the rolls and get what we needed. One day I was working on my Roosevelt Dime Whitman and bought a roll of dimes. Went over to the table we used and opened them up. They were all Mercury dimes, common date '40s in VF-AU condition. Put them in my pocket and went to get another roll but they were all Roosevelt's. You could still find WL Half's in rolls back then, plenty of Franklin's, Mercury Dimes, Silver Nickels, Buffalo Nickels, Washington Quarters from the '30s and all the Wheaties you wanted. Found a few SLQs, Barber coinage and Indian cents but they were usually worn to AG at best.
Those were the days. No TPG, no Ebay, no MS this or MS that. It was "that looks VF+ to me".
Then they came out with the Silver Kennedy in '64....GEM BU modern crap !!
Yep - but didn't have the resources on a 9 yo budget to accumulate much. Saved what I could but when the opportunity came around, cherry bombs were much more interesting and I spent most of it.
Did save $5 in 50c pieces that I got with my grandfather in Elliott, Iowa - we stopped in the bank on the way home from his haircut and I spotted them - still have 'em - nice memories of visits with the Grandparents.
Just started wearing long pants and began a fledgling collection. Alas, my parents could only let me save a few coins each week out of the budget for my collection.
A: The year they spend more on their library than their coin collection.
A numismatist is judged more on the content of their library than the content of their cabinet.
So true lol. Wasn’t it about that time that Hostess cupcakes were 12 cents a pack?
Were you around when gasoline was 26c a gallon?
Well, when our beloved government decided to screw you and remove all intrinsic value from YOUR money, that's when gas became no longer 26c a gallon.
The Arabs didn't have to give a crap if we were going too broke to continue with real money.
Can't blame em.
Yeah....but your hupmobile was getting 7 miles per.
Cheapest I ever paid for gas was 17.9 cents per gallon. Michigan did not tax its gasoline to encourage people to buy cars. This was around 1971.
That musta been for ethol
I was about 6. Too young to understand what was going on, and was only filling blue Whitman folders from circulation with mostly pennies & nickels.
By the time I really started collecting dimes & quarters, clad was already out, and I would walk with my grandparents downtown to "Smelter's Row" to look thru coffee cans full of "melt" silver dimes & quarters. Being young & on a limited allowance, I found the 4x face to be somewhat limiting as to how much I could buy. And I stuck to just Roosies & Mercs, as well as Washingtons.
I really wish I had expanded to SLQ's & Barbers when I had the chance at reasonable prices (never did, as a result), and started collecting halves & silver dollars back then, instead of much later at much higher prices..........
....or purple martin.
In '64 I was six years old. I lost my father the year before to a vehicle accident, life was never the same after that for me as a kid, spent most of '64 in a fog. It wasn't until late 60's that I discovered silver coins could still be found in change/rolls. Thanks to helping my friend on his paper route.