The more senior CU members picked silver coinage out of circulation.
Coinstartled
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By the late 1960's, that had pretty much dried up. Think about it, nearly all of the circulating dimes quarters and halves were no older than five years old by 1969.
Older copper and nickels could still be plucked, but most of the meat was off the bone.
Early 1990's brought us the state quarter program and once again, non numismatists were examining their change.
Now there is no change to speak of, but there is hope for a new generation of coin collectors.
I think. 
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I think I have only received a dollar coin in change 3X. One was a SBA and it was given to me as a quarter. If given an option, it seems we like paper or plastic. Coins be damned!
"A dog breaks your heart only one time and that is when they pass on". Unknown
Anemic local paper recently doubled in price to $2. As sales tax is added, it would take 3 Sacs to make the purchase. Likewise our largest denomination currency, the $100 bill, can barely buy a decent pair of athletic shoes.
One of the benefits of being chronologically challenged (and I say this as a joke, since I am only 69, healthy, and my dear Mom is a few months past 100 now but in very poor shape, I'm sad to say; just wearing out) is that I can remember sitting in my junior high and high school classes and going through all my change. It was of course all silver or wheaties and Lincoln Memorial cents, the latter which I instantly detested and still don't particularly care for. But the keepers were the occasional Indian Head cent, lots of SLQs, Mercury dimes (although they were too plentiful to keep all of
) and the Walking Liberty halves which were commonplace as well, but beautiful and often scarcely circulated.
PS Oh yes, a very important addendum. You could go to any bank well into the 1960s and get shiny BU Morgan dollars for face value! If only we had sense enough to know how special those would become!
Kind regards,
George
I use change all the time....and receive it from purchases made with cash. I periodically have to empty my pocket because too much change is accumulating. Then it goes on the bedroom dresser, until it is 'too much' and then in a ziploc bag... I guess I am a change hoarder
Cheers, RickO
Basically, anything over $10 I use a credit card, paid in full each month.
Basically, The only place I used currency is auto swap meets, as everything is cash.
Coins are just leftovers from fast food.
My kids, in their 20's and 30's don't use cash or coins at all, except for weird random stuff.
Sadly, a lot of large cash transaction now are illegal / off the books activity.
In the late sixties a friend and I made friends with the lunch lady at school. Back then, kids paid for lunch every day with cash and coin. After lunch we would buy any silver she had for face. After watching it pop and fall in the late 1970s, I sold most of it as junk silver when it popped again 7 years ago.
I remember spending Franklin halves. One time in grade school I received a dateless Buffalo nickel in change and thought that was the most wonderful thing. Into the mid 1970's I was still receiving silver in change occasionally.
At my restaurant, we regularly got silver quarters in the pinball machines between 1974 to 1977......lots of them. The kids robbed mom and dad’s silver stache all the time.
Good move. They were always nice ladies.
I hope there was some left in 1980...
"You can't get just one gun." "You can't get just one tattoo." "You can't get just one 1796 Draped Bust Large Cent."
I collected 35c weekly for two years as a Newsday carrier.
)
(a while ago
A Walker, a Franklin or 50c in silver and nickel was what I usually collected from the good tippers.
"Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working" Pablo Picasso
Coinstar and similar machines at banks have brought a lot (relatively speaking) of old stuff back into the daylight. I assume the occasional silver found today is not stuff that has been circulating all along but coins that have made their way back into circulation recently.
I frequently spend quarters and halfs (as part of tips) but all other coins go with my roll search rejects to the coin machine at the bank.
I don't let my change build up too much, $2 to $3 tops, then it gets spent all at once.
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In the early 80's I as pulling silver kennedys out of bank rolls, even then that's about all that was available. I guess the silver boom sucked up almost all the rest.
My understanding is that counting machines at banks, including Coinstar, reject silver coins. As such, they are not the source. It is now a rarity to find silver in any rolls, unless the roll has been "laying around for decades."
Glad I am not a waiter, and especially at the restaurant you frequent!
...1965 had lots going for it outside of numismatics
You might well be right on the silver coins, especially in regard to Coinstar, as I have found them in the reject slot. As for my local banks, their machines mainly use magnets on the underside of the funnel or "strainer" you pour the coins through, and the Canadian and other steel coins get hung up there. I think that most of what makes it down to the spinning disc will get counted as long as it is the right dimensions (I saw a button make it into a half bag once). Of course, it has been reported that some coin processors pull the silver.
It has been 50 years since I paid any attention to my change, yet here I am an avid collector of many things numismatic. IMO too much emphasis is put on the virtual disappearance of scarce coins in change and the good old days. Numismatics has many many facets. Granted many of us geezers became interested by collecting coins from circulation and buying rolls from the local bank (sigh), but I don't believe (and hope) that that is necessary to piquing a kid's (or an adult's) interest in our hobby.
you can get up to 10 percent cash back with certain credit cards like the discover card during their 3 month promos. hard to use cash in that situation
When I first started it was ALL silver as clad had yet to be invented. As has been mentioned, silver dollars were available at face and Buff 5c, Merc 10c, post 1924 SL 25c, and high grade WL 50c, even an occasional early date, were all commonplace. I once had the dilemma of having $20 and going to the bank and trying to decide whether to get a roll of Morgans or 40 rolls of cents.
I can remember the very first clad coin I ever saw. It was a BU 1965 quarter that the owner of the corner candy store’s father gave me as a nickel. He had bad eyesight and probably was fooled by the color. I took it back and explained to the owner about the new coins coming out and how she needed to explain to her father about them.
When I started pulling silver from change and bank rolls and putting them into Whitman folders a Walking Liberty set was possible if you got lucky on the keys, and half of the Franklins had not been minted yet. My opinion, collecting was more fun then.
Sorry to hear about your mom. Be with her as much as you can. Make time to be there. It will save you many sleepless nights after she is gone. I'm sure she spent many, many a sleepless night with you when you were a baby. She did it for you. Now you do it for her. God bless your mom.
Collecting silver from pocket change as a YN was very fun.
You got change back from the candy store, Henway? I took mine in those damn candy necklaces.
Gresham's Law ensured that Silver in circulating coinage would quickly disappear after '64.
I worked for a local liquor store making deliveries in my dad's old beat-up VW Bug around 1977. I regularly traded dollar bills for the accumulation of Silver change the local kids and drunks would spend there.
Across the street was a gas station - one customer would frequently buy gas with Morgan and Peace dollars. The station owner would bring them over and sell them to me for $2 each.
Check out my current listings: https://ebay.com/sch/khunt/m.html?_ipg=200&_sop=12&_rdc=1
Thank you for your sentiments. Unfortunately she lives 1000 miles away from me but I have made it a point to see her as often as I can for the last 20 years or so, which is pretty often, and helped her in many ways. And we had a wonderful surprise 100th birthday party for her back in June. She is a treasure. So I will not have too many regrets, I don't think.
But you're absolutely right about all those sleepless nights.
Kind regards,
George
My sister just called. Dear Mom passed away during the night. She lived a remarkable 100 years, 4 months, and 4 days.
Thanks to @Paradisefound and @Hydrant and others for their kindnesses shown to her.
George
Dear George,
May your beautiful Mom rests in Peace filled Love Forever 
With my Heartfelt condolences ....... my prayer for you and your family.
Hard economic times tend to bring the old silver, at face value, to the local cash register. A clerk buddy of mine recently had an old timer buy a pack of smokes with silver Washingtons.
No Way Out: Stimulus and Money Printing Are the Only Path Left
My condolences to you and you family. It is always too soon to lose someone close to you - even if they are 100 years old.
But, she left with good thoughts and kind words as her sendoff. Even from strangers she never met on a forum she never knew existed!
Nearly a roll of them, when a single coin would have worked in 1963.
That would make for an interesting analysis. If you backed out all the extra cigarette taxes imposed in the last 45 years, I wonder if the silver value of a single quarter would still pay for a pack of cigarettes today.
At some point, I could not ear enough money mowing lawns to buy all the silver coins I wanted for my Whitman albums -- so I bought only the very best silver dollars and rarly WL halves I could find in bank rolls. Still --- there was never enough to cover all I wanted to save.
Franklins, Walkers ands Mercs were very common in the late 60s, out in Seattle. Grab a handful of loose change, and 10% or more would be 90% silver. I never found any Buffalo nickels, or silver dollars, but my older brother received a Shield nickel in change, that he gave to me. Still have it. What a fun time!
Dave
In the early 60's when I was just a little snot when my grandpa came over to visit my sister and I would run out to greet him. Then he would pull the change out of his pocket and give us each half. Silver and wheaties but I didn't know the difference and I spent them all.
It was still pretty easy to find a little silver in the early 70's. Wheaties and war nickels were pretty easy to find into the mid 70's or more.
Successful BST deals with mustangt and jesbroken. Now EVERYTHING is for sale.
Until silver spiked in 1980, you could find them by the bucket load overseas, especially around US Bases, and conversely, far away from American bases that no one "hit". I pulled some really nice pre 1920 coins at a small English store around 1995. The silver was gone by then, but these were obviously pocket change brought over by US Service People in WW1.
Within the last 3 years or so, I scooped bunch of US and Canadian coins at a little shop in the Azores. With the conversion rate in Euros, the coins were, IIRC, all 16 cents or so apiece. I used up all my Euros buying Sac $1, Canadian $1 and $2's, a couple 50 cent pieces, and finished off on quarters. No silver, but even US coins outside the US, with a couple exceptions, do not have much value.
I started looking for coins in 1956 (yes looking for 55 double die); back then finding silver coins in circulation was no problem...
rainbowroosie April 1, 2003