What Happens To Circulated Coins?

Here's a good example of what happens - and a nice story also.. My father in law knows that my son and I collect coins but has never said anything about it (he doesn't collect). We arrived at his house last night for a weekend visit and my son mentions something about coins. Well my father in law says that he has some old coins and would we like to see them. I was a bit surprised as he has never said anything about coins and has absolutely no interest but here he pulls a little tin box of stuff. So this is a good example of where they go, many are probably sitting in people's homes in storage and never see the light of day. By the way, he had several common date avg circulated Morgans, Peace, Kennedy silver and other junk silver, plus a bunch of wheats and an IHC. The big surprise of the night was in between all the random silver was a 1917 type 1 SLQ in xf !! How that got in there I don't know. After slobbering over them for a few minutes alas they all went back into the tin box and back to their hiding place...until next time :)