Silver Hoarding In 1961

The melt value on copper cents is almost 3 times face right now.

Edited for clarity

No one had a reason to hoard silver in 1961. It was common. It was everywhere. All circulating coinage except the nickel was silver based then. Even silver dollars were available even though they were long out of production.

My dad would bring home silver dollars regularly. When he died, each of us 7 kids got around 50 or so of them.

A quarter and a dime would buy a gallon of gas then. And I spent lots of them on gas. That same quarter and dime today will buy about 2.7 gallons of gas.

When the U.S. switches from copper to another metal for its coinage, what will that mean for the value of copper? Will it reduce demand initially, and what will it mean for any copper-clad coins? Will it have a premium similar to silver. I am aware that silver goes by the ounce and copper by the pound.

No one hoarded coins in 1961. It was 1964 (and to a minor extent 1963) that hoarding happened, and it had nothing to do with silver, but potential collector value. Why hoard, when you could walk into any bank with $1000 and walk out with a bag of BU Morgans?

In 64, mainstream media pointed out how much money you would have if you bought a roll of each Lincoln Cent when it was issued. They ignored the two reasons this way true: Mintages were tiny compared to the 60s, and no one else bothered to save them. Any then-current effort was doomed from the start by mintages 10, 100 even 1000 times as large, and your neighbor had ten or even 100 bags of the same coin. They're still coming out of the woodwork.

Cents, and to a lesser extent nickels, were hoarded as fast as the mint could make them (lookit the mintage figures, dwarfing previous years, especially nickels).

Dimes and quarters were made in huge quantities as well, but were being hoarded by a different group--vending machines, which had just started to reach their stride. Each machine can easily hold $100-$1000 in change, so dimes and quarters are now sitting in machines instead of banks.

Last, halves had this new guy on them, so they were hoarded by the generally pubic, along with the last Franklins.

Silver hoarding started June 24, 1967, when the gubmint announced it would no longer sell silver for $1.2929 unless you paid in silver certificates, and only for one year. At the same time, it would allow the price of silver to float, with no attempt to enforce a market price.

As silver went to around $3, I made a bunch of bucks riding my bike to all the banks, giving the tellers a premium for SC, and shipping a fat envelope out every week. As a few saw prices rising, they couldn't grasp that the deal had an expiration date, and held. 43 years later, they're still worth less than they were in 1968.

Yup, 1 billion modern pennies uses only 63 tons of copper.

Heh. I already think we're using play money. Until and unless we go back to a silver or gold standard it's all just funny money anyway.

My goodness, brings back memories. I was just a very small child but I remember taking out wheat pennies, silver War Nickels, Mercury dimes (and the Roosevelt as well) and all silver once 1964 was here! I have rolls of Kennedy halves from issue! Not many but nevertheless some! nice thread topic! Now it may be the pre 1982 pennies and nickels to keep! They are worth more than face!

It does, indeed, seem so. As one of the few here who has actually used REAL money during my life, I KNOW what real money feels and looks like... and, you're right... the junk money they are foisting on us today ISN'T it.