Silver Quarter

Most of you probably don't know that I used to collect coins. I have a decent collection despite not being really into the hobby for quite a while. I still buy a few coins from time to time whenever the collecting bug rears its head.

One thing that I picked up as part of my numismatic interest was looking through my change, because you never know what you'll find. The usual good stuff I'd find would be include wheat pennies and the occasional war nickel that is 35% silver (you can tell by a giant mint mark above the Monticello building).

Anyway, while looking through the change I received from yesterday's purchase of lunch, I saw that one of the quarters gleamed a bit differently. Upon closer inspection, it happens that I found a (90%) silver quarter from 1964. I think it's only the 3rd time that I've ever found a silver quarter in my life. It really is quite rare, especially given that they look very different than other quarters. They stopped making silver quarters for normal circulation in 1964, so it has had to escape collection for a good 45 years... pretty impressive.

Here's a picture with flash of the silver quarter mixed in with some regular quarters. It is painfully obvious which one is not like the others.


And, even if you don't get a good look at the actual obverse or reverse of the coin, you can tell which one is silver simply by looking at the ridged edges.


Also, they clink differently due to the different metal content. But, you'll just have to trust me on that one, since I am not so ambitious as to record quarter clinking sounds.

Well, here's the coin itself. That's one less silver quarter for the world to find in their change. I really wonder how many are still out there floating in normal circulation. So, keep your eyes out for silver quarters and dimes from 1964 and earlier. And, for half dollars (if you ever come across any) that are dated 1969 or before... technically, 1970 halves exist, but they were never released for normal circulation and can only be found inside collector sets.


On a final note, I should say that it's not worth that much... maybe a couple dollars.