Monday, January 11, 2016

1964 And The Last U.S. Silver Coins

As many of you reading this know, 1964 was the last year the U.S. minted 90 percent silver coins for circulation. What you may not know is the campaign waged by the U.S. to convince people to stop hoarding these coins by mass producing them before "giving in" in 1965. The campaign involved the dimes, quarters and half dollars used in every day commerce. Silver dollars are not included as Peace dollars (1921-1935) are the last for-circulation silver dollars produced. Let's look at these coins starting with the Roosevelt Dime.

The silver Roosevelt Dime was produced from 1946 through 1964 replacing the popular Winged Liberty Head (a.k.a. Mercury) Dime. The anti-hoarding campaign for this coin started in 1962 when the Philadelphia and Denver Mints produced a combined 407,398,380 dimes versus 302,876,550 the year before. This was bumped up to 545,126,530 in 1963 and a whopping 1,286,877,180 in 1964. It didn't help but gave people more silver dimes to salt away.


The silver Washington Quarter was produced from 1932 through 1964 replacing the Standing Liberty Quarter. The anti-hoarding campaign for this coin also started in 1962 when the Philadelphia and Denver Mints produced a combined 163,710,756 quarters versus 120,692,928 the year before. This was increased to 209,604,184 in 1963 and a whopping 1,264,526,113 in 1964. It didn't help but gave people more silver quarters to save for a rainy day.


The anti-hoarding campaign for half dollars involved two different coins-the Franklin Half Dollar (1948-1963) and the 1964 Kennedy Half Dollar. In 1962 the Philadelphia and Denver Mints produced a combined 45,187,281 half dollars versus 28,566,442 the year before. In 1963 this was increased to 89,233,292 coins. The Kennedy Half Dollar replaced the Franklin in 1964 and the Philadelphia and Denver Mints produced 429,509,450 of this popular coin. The Kennedy coins were produced in a 40 percent version from 1965 through 1970 before converting to a clad version like the other coins mentioned.

You can expect these higher mintage coins in the 1962 to 1964 range to be worth their silver melt value and very little more. With spot silver at $14 that would be approximately $1.00 for a circulated dime, $2.50 for a circulated quarter and $5.00 for a circulated half dollar. The coins that are worth more are identified in my eBook "The Last 90 Percent Silver United States Coins - A Buying and Selling Guide". You can find it here. Read the first few chapters free on your Kindle or non-Kindle device.


Thanks for reading. Keep the faith.  JA