Were 1965 Clad Coins Hoarded?

No one kept them. I remember going to one of my first coin shows in 1970 with the intention of filling out my 1958-1970 coins I didn't have.

No problem with tons of BU available for all denominations that minted 1958-64, but I ended up buying mint sets or made up year sets to get the dimes and quarters from 1965-70.

They were so "Scarce" that I bought several BU rolls of dimes and quarters that I kept for 20 years and sold in 1989 for fantastic profit.

I am from Canada, but sometimes I come across American coins. Every time I see a 1965 coin I get very annoyed because if only it was a year older, it would have been silver.

Just speaking from my own experience. I was merely a youngster at the time, but I remember the grumbling and disapproval from the adults. The hoarding of silver coins really began at that point. In time people accepted the clads. What choice did we have?

OK.

To put this in perspective a little bit collectors had been scouring pocket change for decades looking for rare coins. Of course by 1965 there wasn't much of anything left but there was always a chance someone's XF '17-S (obv) half dollar had accidently gotten spent and you could find it. There was a booming market in recent date BU rolls and even something like a '63 nickel bag might bring a large premium in 1964 because everyone "knew" the hobby would grow forever and need these coins.

Then in '64 to combat a coin shortage unfairly blamed on collectors the government announced a date freeze. This froze the BU roll market. People suddenly realized there were plenty of coins and might never be any new ones in circulation since they'd all be dated 1964. Then in '65 they made a bad situation far worse by switching to base metal clad and announcing a new date freeze of 1965. Meanwhile the mint, FED, and Congress were all taking pot shots at coin collectors, even going so far as to introduce a bill to make coin collecting illegal. The ramifications of this are apparently still being felt since every single coin the mint has "outlawed" is dated after 1932.

So collectors just hated the new coins and only a few saved them. But these few people set aside rolls and bags and there were a lot of coins in aggregate. But it soon became apparent that collectors were permanently soured on the new coins so there was no demand at all. Most of the coins set aside were just spent and even today a roll of '65 quarters is worth only $135. Most of these rolls will be hard to sell because buyers want nice attractive specimens and. of course, nearly the entire mintage of '65 quarters looked like garbage.

1965 is an exception to the rule that the first year of issue is the most common. It was true up through about 1975 but since then finding this date is nearly as difficult as the '66, '67, or many of the early dates. It's actually tougher than some of the early '70's Denver issues. It's probably among the toughest 20 of all eagle reverse quarters. Keep in mind though that the price is more reflective of high demand because it's the first year of issue rather than scarcity. Many type set builders and collectors like to use the 1965 quarter rather than another date.

The changeover was an illustration in Gresham's Law: Bad money drives out good money.