When Did Silver Coins Become Uncommon In Circulation?

I think the Government was pretty agressive in pulling the silver off the market in 65. That led to a percieved coin shortage, as collectors were also gathering them up. If memory serves me right, that also was the reasoning behind limited productions of mint sets for those early years - as most coins were produced for production.

So was there a numismatic panic to acquire as much silver coinage as one could or were people slow to realize what was happening?

Was it major news or did they do it on the QT, like they did to the penny?

Rick

Thanks, been a while since I found one in change. I think the last was a quarter I got out of a slot machine in Biloxi, had to be the mid/late 90s.

A friend did score a handful of Ikes last month at a local credit union, one was silver.

Rick

I changed the topic title. It was a bit misleading.

Here some countries, denomination and date of being demonetized

Austria:
5 Schilling 30. September 1969 - last issue:1968
10 Schilling 31. March 1975 - last issue:1973

Germany-West and Berlin:
5 D-Marks 31. August 1975 - last issue:1974

Switzerland:
1/2, 1, 2 and 5 Franken 30. September 1971 - last issues 1967

Netherlands: 1 and 2 1/2 Gulden 1. January 1973 last issues 1967

Spain: 100 Pesetas, only struck 1966-1969

If I remember my reading correctly, the French .900 silver 50 francs was available on request from banks just for the asking, but was never proactively issued for circulation. I suspect that for the period 1974-80, the bullion value of the silver was way below the face value, so the demand for them must have been low, and most remained in the banks.

Krause reports that about 45 million of them were made, to be issued in sets only. I suspect that is only a half truth. I doubt that they all went into sets. According to Krause, they are not found in VF or less condition. That, to me at least, suggests that they did not circulate.

I believe that they were never in normal circulation.
It is one of those 'gray' areas for you to decide if they are NCLT or not.

I also was a child in the 60's, I was pulling silver out of circulation into the late 60's. My mother owned a truck stop and would let me pull out any older coins from the cash register. I can also riding my bike to small mom and pop stores, seeing if they had any walkers halves or Mercury dime for my collection, and they most times had a few for me.

I have never seen it official but I don't think government was pulling silver out at the start. Their job was to provide coins for commerce.
The way I have heard it everyone was pulling silver coins out, so it was hard for them to keep enough coins in circulation.

Also I have heard that there was a problem getting the new blanks, so some silver coins may have been minted as late as 1966, but with the date 1964. The San Francisco mint was open back up to help keep enough coins in circulation. Also notice no mint marks on coins 1965 through 1967, I feel this was just part of the effort to make as many coins as possible, by not taking any extra time with the dies ...just make coins.

I could be wrong on some points ... But over the years there have been some good threads on this subject that are good reads if you want to search for them.