Just What is The Value Of Silver Coins?

Well most of your pocket change is pretty much worth whatever value is marked on it. A dime is just a dime. However, dimes minted in the US on or before 1964 were 90% silver. The same is true, of course, for quarters, half dollars, and of course, silver dollar coins! It was all minted to conform to a specific amount of silver per each dollar of face value. Every dollar in face value of US silver coins contains .715 of an ounce of silver.

If you are lucky enough to find a 1964 quarter in your pocket change, please do not drop it into the soda machine! As I write this post, silver is worth $17.31 an ounce. So each $1 worth of 90% silver coins is:

  .715 * $17.31 = $12.37

Divide that by 4, since you have a quarter, and your quarter’s silver bullion value is about $3! So right now, 90% silver US coins are worth about 12 times their face value. One dollar in silver coins is worth twelve dollars.

Now half dollars made from 1965 to 1970 still kept some silver. They were 40% until even that was phased out.  I remember when my dad would go through his pocket change to find 90% silver coins, and that was years after they are started minting those coins from base metals. It was a profitable and fun hobby. But these days, after over 40 years, pocket change has been searched for so long, it is pretty hard to find any silver coins. I have actually heard of people pulling a silver half out of a bank roll though, so it might be worth a scan.

What is important today about US silver coins is the fact that they still make a fairly affordable way to buy precious metals. You can look on online auctions like EBay, flea markets, antique stores, or coin shops and find US silver coins, which is sometimes called “junk silver.” Don’t be fooled by the word, junk, because it contains silver, which is a precious metal. They call it that because the coins are not in an uncirculated condition, and so they usually aren’t coveted by collectors for their nuministic value. But that is good news for you, because you will be accumulating silver without paying a premium for a collectable!

If you are shopping for silver, or see a good deal on EBay for a pile of 90% silver or 40% silver, we’d like to help you quickly estimate the value. Use our handy US silver coin value calculator. You can enter the dollar amount of the coins, the current silver price per ounce, and get a good estimate of the silver bullion value. You may expect to pay slightly more then the bullion value, but you may also find some great deals for less then the silver melt value. It is particularly important to be able to estimate the silver value quickly in a fast paced auction environment like EBay. The calculator works on 40% silver too.

silver coins, silver value, us silver, 90% silver, 40% silver

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