Silver Coins Melted At The Mint, 1968-1970.

So now lets talk about the 'survival rate' of some of the old silver coins.

Wow - that is a lot!

1971 does not give #s, just that

I'd like to know how they separated out the silver.

My understanding is that each Fed district created their own machines. There were almost certainly some of these separators at contractors that were already counting and rolling coins for the FED even in those days. Most of the machines rolled coins down an incline and those which went a little further were the silver coins.

Remember most of the clads had to go through these machines multiple times as they were released and again mixed with silver coin.

The FED was removing these coins even as the government was saying they expected clad and silver to circulate side by side forever. At the time there were still brand new silver coins being released that had gotten lost in warehouses since this was before the days that they rotated their coin stocks. The percentage of silver in circulation had been dropping since late-'65 but it just plummeted after mid-'68. I should have suspected it was the FED but ascribed the drop to rising silver prices instead. It went very quickly and highlights just how short a time most coins sat out of circulation. In those days very few people could afford to hoard more than a couple years worth of coins and most people tried to spend their coins. Even today very few coins sit out of circulation for more than four years and the FED rotates the oldest coins out of storage first causing the clads to wear evenly since 1972.

In the '50's it was common to find old quarters in AU. Today older coins are heavily worn or already lost forever.

Thank you for the additional information.

I figure the FED got nearly 20% of the silver that was ever made by the mint disregarding the very large amount that was recoined by the mint after the coins were mutilated or severely worn.

Most of the other 80% was already held by collectors or not circulating for some other reason. The general public got the lion's share of circulating coinage beginning in 1961 when it was announced stockpiles were going down so quickly it was believed coins would have to be made of base metal or otherwise debased in the near future. This hoarding increased with every rise in the price of silver and was causing shortages of coins for commerce. The mint kept ramping up production and people set aside ever larger amounts of mostly dimes and quarters. But even small change got caught up in it a little because many of those people who quit spending their coin also just threw their cents and nickels in the jar as well.

The mint had people nearly in a panic by 1965 but, I believe, hoarding was more closely related to increasing silver price. When the price of silver exceeded face value for the first time in 1967 more and more people started hoarding more and more silver coin.

But by 1967 the coins were completely picked over. Most people would rather save out older coins in nice shape than freshly minted 1964 dated silver quarters. So the mint predominantly got recent dated coins, common dates, culls, and older worn out coins.

The early clads were just disgusting. They were poorly made by tired worn out dies. They looked like junk in a pile of silver coins.

Curiously though the value of metal in a modern clad is much higher than the value of silver in a silver coin back in 1935. At the rate Congress is inflating the money there can't be any coins at all before much longer.

Yes, inflation will eventually push up all base metals beyond the face value of fractional coinage. Maybe stainless steel?

I hear zinc clad steel is a trendy option, too! =P