Non-Proportionate Asw Of Dimes, Quarters, Halves Vs Dollars?

Sap. Teach where you learned all of this. You're like 'Johnny on the Spot' for all things history and triva.

Apparently, I don't know everything. I had to look up in Wikipedia who or what "Johnny on the spot" was.

Mostly, I learn by reading. Books, websites, coin magazines, coin club newsletters, that sort of thing. If I have time, I then go and check my facts on Wikipedia or some other site before committing them to virtual ink.

In this particular case, it was also somewhat of a "school of hard knocks" experience. Not too long ago I answered a question here on CCF, in this thread, making a comment that a certain face value of 90% silver US coinage, be it dimes, quarters, halves or dollars, would all have the same silver content.

I was wrong. My maths was all wrong, too, because I'd looked up the weight of a silver dollar and assumed that American coins were like British, European and Australian coins, and that fractions of a dollar would weigh those fractions of a dollar.

I always try to learn from my mistakes, so I sought to find out why I was wrong. I'd read the story of the reason why large and small silver coins of the Latin Monetary Union have different finenesses, years ago in the local coin magazine, so it wasn't too hard to figure out that a similar thing had happened back there in America, only with weight and not fineness being the variable.


No. As part of the British Empire, Canadian monetary policy was inherited from Britain, where full face value was expected for all coins up until the abolition of sterling silver. In Britain, there are sixty pence to a crown, and the tiny silver penny weighs exactly 1/60th of a silver crown - and both are sterling silver. Canada likewise gave no discounting for larger coins during the sterling period, though there were no dollar-sized Canadian coins at the time. When Canada dropped to .800 fine, and even when they started issuing dollars, they still kept the weight and fineness consistent across the series.

So one Canadian dollar's worth of silver coins will always contain the same amount of silver, whatever the denominations that dollar is split up into. You just have to watch the dates to make sure the finenesses are always the same.

I assume that, unlike America and Europe, the governments of Britain and the dominions were content to (or were expected to) wear the extra costs of providing the smaller coins.

Silverhawk, I'm with you...I love it when SAP chimes in on a thread. (Even if he was wrong, like, ONCE out of his 6,839 Posts. If only I had that batting average! ;) )

Sterling is good stuff. May I ask what exactly makes you think it's underappreciated? (I don't disagree, I really don't have much of an opinion on it.) I'll take 90% if that's what is widely recognized and easy to move. If it's made of 95%, but no one recognizes it and it's hard to move...then what's the point? Even some .999 rounds can be hard to move just because they aren't so widely recognized. So, is it the fineness that makes you feel the sterling is undervalued? Thanks for the insight!

Removing irrelevant post at the request of the mods. Sorry, my mistake.

The ratio is hardly the same. 900/835=7.8%.

silver dollars have 26.73 grams (when fresh from factory)

silver other coins have 25 grams when combined to make 1 dollar.

Of course in reality almost all older silver coins will be a tiny bit less then their original weight because of wear.

I found this thread when trying to locate a reputable answer to the question of how much actual silver is in the 40% quarters from the Bicentennial Issues. I'm still not sure about the original question's answer but found so many interesting things in this thread that I thought I'd try to reboot it as a way of getting a definitive answer. That way, newer members like myself can learn the great stuff, too.