Silver Quarters Central

There is a growing interest in precious metals these days and since America has a long history of gold and silver based currency older coins such as the Standing Liberty and Washington silver quarters are becoming increasingly popular.

Many people see them as a way to accumulate something of value in times of high monetary inflation.

Many of these types of silver quarters are referred to as “junk silver” since they have no particular numismatic value.

When silver prices are high, however silver quarters do have significant value simply because of the silver content and make a great way to get started if you’re interested in converting some Federal Reserve Notes (i.e. U.S. paper dollars) into more stable currency.

American Silver Quarters

 

The American silver quarter first came into circulation after the enactment of the Coinage Act of 1792 and the establishment of the United States Mint.

 

Over the years, the quarter has been minted quite a number of times in different states, primarily Philadelphia, Denver and San Francisco. The Washington silver quarters were introduced in 1932 replacing the Standing Liberty quarter and are still in circulation to this day.

 

The specifications for the coin when minted were to comprise of 90 percent silver and 10 percent copper. This roughly translates to each coin containing 0.18084 ounces of pure silver in its 6.25 grams. It is believed the US mint produced about 3.8 billion of these silver quarters.

 

The value of this amount of silver in today’s market makes these coins very valuable fetching well above their intended 25 cent value; not to mention the numismatic demand the coins hold as they are in demand by collectors – especially those that contain errors of some kind. In the collectors’ world the rarer the item is, the greater its value.

 

However, due to global shortage in silver, the mint production had to be reevaluated. The Coinage Act of 1965 resulted in the elimination of silver from the Washington quarter and replacing it with more abundant metals like copper, nickel and zinc.

 

This was in response to a coin shortage in 1964 that caused speculation in rolls and bags of silver quarters as well as other coins. To avert such speculation, legislation was passed declaring that the US Mint could continue to use the 1964 date on coinage even after 1964.

 

In 1965, Congress directed the Mint to continue using the 1964 date on all 90 percent silver Washington coins. However, because the new coins (which were composed of copper and nickel) were not as likely to instigate speculation, they were dated as from 1965. This meant that all of the Washington coins that the US Mint manufactured in 1964, 1965, and 1966 bore the date 1964. The last of the 90 percent Washington silver quarter-dollar coins was struck in January 1966.

Silver Quarters Today

 

In today’s market, the Washington silver quarters of 1932 to 1964 are valued at a base price of 6.81 dollars. This is due to the fact that currently, the value of an ounce of silver is approximately 40.18 dollars (you can check the current price per ounce with a quick Google search for comparison). It’s face value of 0.25 dollars seems ludicrous and any person unaware of this can be scammed out of a small fortune. A coin with an early mint date (say 1932) and in mint or good condition would fetch more than those coins that follow it.

 

More specifically the 1932 Denver and San Francisco Washington silver quarters are always sold at higher than market value unlike the rest which are often sold in accordance to the prevailing silver prices per ounce.

 

Some of the Denver and San Francisco, specifically the 1932 mints- have base values as low as $200 and can go up to $15000. Generally, mints from Denver and San Francisco have greater value than from other mints, ranging from $4.5 to $30- mostly in issues from 1941.

 

The current quarter coin version is cupro-nickel (8.33 percent Nickel and 91.67 percent Copper). It weighs approximately 5.67 grams and costs about 4.29 cents to make.

 

They are of significantly lesser value than their predecessors -the silver quarters of the pre-1960s era- but who knows, maybe in another hundred years, the demand for nickel and copper could rise in value (measured in dollars anyway) as well and these types of silver quarters will be priceless!

 

Silver Quarters as an Investment

 

These days there is a lot of interest in using silver quarters as an investment or a form of savings. Despite an economic environment that is supposedly running low inflation many of us realize that prices in the real world that we live in are not exactly static. They aren’t falling either.

 

One way many people have found helpful to protect their savings is to put a portion of it into gold or silver. When it comes to silver there are a number of different options when trying to decide what form of silver to invest in.

 

Silver quarters are quite popular because you can get previously circulated quarters from the 1960s and earlier for low premiums over the spot price of silver. Sometimes silver bullion is a better deal but you can get good deals on large bags of circulated silver coins as well.

 

Given the stated intentions of the Federal Reserve and the action -of inaction- of the U.S. Government when it comes to the national debt it seems reasonable to assume that our economic course continues to lie down the inflationary path for some time. Whether we will end up with hyper-inflation and $1,000+/per ounce silver -as some believe- or merely high inflation is up for debate.

 

What no one debates is that losing purchasing power due to inflation at any level is not something to be happy about. Naturally enough the main goal of saving and investing is to never lose money however it happens a lot and to many people.

 

So far in the current silver bull market -which started in 2001- folks who have put money into silver and not sold when the price drops have done quite well. We all wish we could have started at $4.25 back at the turn of the century but even if you picked up some silver at $10 or $13 per ounce in 2008-2009 you are doing well with the price varying between $28 and $48 dollars per ounce in 2011.

 

We will see what 2012 brings to the silver investment scene but regardless what silver does if you plan to put some money into the precious metal silver quarters are worth a look as a way to invest with low premiums.

 

Storing Silver Quarters

 

If you do decide to purchase silver quarters for use as a portion of your savings or investment plan you might wonder what to do with them once they are in hand.

 

Silver can be quite bulky compared to gold since it is much less valuable on a per ounce basis at this point. Obviously if your silver stash only consists of a few rolls of Washington quarters at this point there is not much to worry about in terms of storage but as you accumulate more or if your initial purchase is quite large it makes sense to think about the best way to safely store your coins.

 

Generally your storage options are probably going to fall into two categories:

 

• In home storage
• Outside storage facility

 

In Home Silver Storage

 

When it comes to in-home storage you may already have everything you need to safely store your silver coins. If you already have some type of collection that is stored in a safe or vault you can typically just keep your silver quarters in the same location as long as there is room.

 

Many large gun safes are particularly good for this type of storage since they are too large for any but the most determined and well equipped thieves to carry off and they are also made to resist fire.

 

The only other situation to worry about would be a sophisticated burglar who could crack or break into the safe. If you have sufficient valuables to protect in such a safe it might be prudent to have other home security measures in place as well that would help to mitigate the risk of a safe cracking event.

 

If you don’t have a need for such a large safe you can get away with a smaller unit like you will find available at Wal-Mart, Lowe’s or Home Depot however these types of units are typically on the low end of the quality scale.

 

They may help you protect the contents from fire but the are likely easy to carry off unless you take precautions to hide and/or secure the safe in your home such that it cannot be easily found and carried off if a break-in occurs.

 

You can also dispense with a safe altogether which might let you devise a more sophisticated hiding place for your stash while increasing the risk of losing it should you experience a house fire.

 

Using an Outside Silver Storage Facility

 

If you are not comfortable or well equipped for in home storage of your silver quarters and other valuables then you might consider your outside storage facility options.

 

Many people immediately think of safe deposit boxes as the obvious choice and these may work for some people however as we mentioned before with the bulky size of any silver stash of decent proportions you would have to keep a fairly large safety deposit box. You’ll have to compare the available box size to the physical dimensions of the amount of silver you plan to store.

 

The other potential problem with safety deposit box storage has to do with why many people are interested in buying silver in the first place. Generally folks who are buying silver quarters are distrustful of the government, banks and establishment institutions since these groups have let us or our ancestors down in past times of economic turmoil.

 

Naturally it would be nicer to have your savings with someone you could trust a bit more and who was less beholden to the government especially since the United States government is in such bad shape financially and has been making noises about messing with 401k plans, IRAs and the like (all for your own good of course).

 

There are some private, non-bank storage facilities that might work for you if you want to store your savings outside your home but prefer to avoid a traditional bank safety deposit box.

 

You’ll have to do a bit of research but storage in a jurisdiction with a good privacy protection reputation could be a good option if you have enough savings to warrant the extra effort to secure such accommodations in a place such as Hong Kong or Austria.

 

Some specialty storage facilities even provide the option to use their services under the cover of anonymity which is a plus for anyone who believes in the right to the most financial privacy possible.

 

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