Finding Silver In Change?

I would think the highest odds are it's from a dump and the person dumping it did not know any better.

The few silver coins that I've retrieved from coin roll hunting were all heavily worn, suggesting that they had very long working lives. If a silver coin were in good condition, I would be more inclined to believe collection dump or maybe an old change jar dump.

I just thought of a third scenario: a collector chose to purposefully put it back into circulation, in the hope that another collector might find it, or because it's simply fun to put obscure coins into circulation.

if in very worn condition - probably spent eternity wandering the U.S.
if in good/great condition - it was kicked out of a collection.

Is it heavily worn? If not, then scenario #1 can probably be eliminated. Silver coins don't "wander" without getting worn.

I would think a variation of scenario 2 was likely: Someone took the dime out of someone else's collection and used it to buy something, thus putting into circulation. Collectors as a rule aren't going to simply "decide to spend" a coin that they know is worth considerably more than face value. Who that "someone else" might be, would depend on the personal situation of that particular collector. Options for the coin-remover include:
- Parent
- Child
- Jilted spouse/fiance/etc
- Thief

As for scenario #3 (the deliberate spending by a well-heeled seed-sower), I think it less likely with the increasing price of silver - at current prices you're giving away over $5 of silver in exchange for ten cents. A seed-sower is more likely to use something much closer to face value, such as a worn-down buffalo or Liberty nickel, or maybe even a bicentennial quarter.

Then there's the as-yet-unmentioned scenario #4: the coin was in a hoard/accumulation (not a collection) which got mass-dumped into a Coinstar or otherwise banked or spent, thus re-entering circulation after a long absence.

I've found several silver dimes and quarters in the CoinStar reject bin that way!

Another scenario is foreign tourists bringing back change from previous US holidays, or change given to them by friends or family who visited the USA many years previously. As a tour guide I quite often encounter American tourists trying to spend obsolete British notes and coins that they've found lying around at home, kept from a trip in the 1960s or been given by helpful friends and family. Unless he/she was a coin collector, a British tourist coming to the States who had found or was given some old American coins wouldn't automatically think that something like a 1950s Washington quarter or Roosevelt dime was silver, as the UK eliminated silver from its coinage back in 1947.