Silver Quarters Central

With a denomination of 25 cents, the minting of silver quarters was authorized in 1792 with the first silver quarter coins being issued in 1796. Its origins can be traced to the splitting of the Spanish coins into eight sections and the combining of two of these formed the quarter. It was not until 1804 when they were marked with the value of 25c on the reverse side.

Production Years for Silver Quarters

1796-1838

• The first silver quarters issued were from Philadelphia though they had no mint marks and had approximately 90% silver content. They begun being produced from 1796 and these earliest of issues were of the Bust Quarter variety and included: Draped Bust and the Capped Bust mainly. They measured a diameter of 24.3 mm and weighed 6.74gms.

1838-1891

• Next were the  Seated Liberty varieties of 1838 which had 90% silver content with the weight varying between 6.22- 6.68. They were minted from Philadelphia, New Orleans, San Francisco and Carson City and stopped being produced around 1891.

1892-1930

• The next two varieties also had 90% silver content. The Liberty Head, commonly known as the Barber was issued from Philadelphia, Denver, New Orleans and San Francisco from 1892 till 1916 at a weight of 6.25gms. The initial of the designer graces the neck of LIBERTY on these coin varieties which have reeded edges. The Standing Liberty Quarter, minted from 1916-1930, was similar to this only that they never came out of New Orleans; LIBERTY’s breast was covered in these issues. The date was also set into a depression so as to protect it from wear.

1932-1964

• The Washington Quarter of 1932 also had 90% silver though the editions from 1965 on-wards were debased and are known as clad coinage. These issues were similar in weight and dimensions to the earlier two productions and was minted from the same cities as the Standing Liberty issues. Collectors value the early Washington Quarters more highly than the later varieties. Beginning in 1932, silver quarters were minted through several years with their production stopping in 1964- though some silver quarters that were dated 1964 were still in production in 1965 as a transition to nickel-copper coinage was being done.

The End of Silver Quarters

At the opening of the 1960s, a demand for silver led to a shortage that forced the American Treasury to stop the production of coins with such high silver content as the coins were being saved by citizens or melted down for their silver value. As such, the Coinage Act of 1965 led to the removal of silver from American coinage due to the rising prices of silver. The Act was slow in coming into action thus the Treasury continued to strike silver bearing coins right up to 1966. These coins were however dated 1964. As such, the last quarters minted from silver were produced in 1966.

The silver quarters that were being issued as of 1932 were composed of 90% in total silver content, coming to a total weight of about 0.18 ounces. They were majorly minted in San Francisco and Denver and bear mintmarks from these two cities. However, some silver quarters were also struck, though in special occasions and not for general issue.

The Bicentennial Quarter of 1976 was struck to commemorate the 200th anniversary of independence. These were actually minted in 1975 and the following year though they cannot be told apart from each other. These should not be confused with the varieties that came after 1965-in that they have no silver. The Bicentennial variety being spoken of here had 40% in silver content.

So you’re looking for 5 ounce silver quarters? Hhmmm…If you are new to the silver market perhaps you mean 5 ounce silver coins of some type.

American silver quarters from 1964 and earlier are quite valuable these days because of the fact that they are 90% silver and 10% copper in composition however the certainly are not 5 ounce coins.

You can however get 5 ounce silver coins and bars and that could be what you are looking for.

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So…Are silver quarters worth anything? When you are like me hearing a question like that makes me stop in my tracks!

The answer is quick and easy:

Yes! Silver quarters are actually worth quite a bit these days. Read on to find out just how much they are worth.

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So perhaps you have heard of silver clad coins but are wondering what exactly they are and how they are different than other types of silver coins out there.

For the sake of our discussion here we’ll assume that you are interested in American silver clad coins which is a good assumption to make since I don’t know a lot about other types of silver coins besides the odd 1 ounce Austrian Philharmonic bullion coin.

Bullion coins are quite a different animal from the silver clad coins we’re looking at here.

American Silver Clad Coins

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There are a few different ways to look at silver and specifically silver coins like the silver quarters we talk about a lot here. Some people buy silver coins as an investment, others as collectibles and still others as a form of savings.

Each approach has some slightly different reasons behind it as well as it’s potential for profit or loss -however you choose to measure that metric.

Since I don’t really know much about buying silver coins as a collectible item we won’t discuss that here but I am more familiar with buying silver for investment or savings purposes.

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The phrase sounds a bit odd doesn’t it? Can there really be such a thing as scrap silver coins? Well sort of. These types of coins are also called junk silver coins which may be even more misleading.

When people talk about scrap or junk silver coins what they really mean -at least in the United States- is previously circulated silver coinage.

You don’t think that the quarters or dimes in your pocket are anything special right? I mean, you can buy yourself something refreshing to drink if you have 5 or 6 of them but you aren’t that sad to part with them and don’t see much value in them beyond what they will buy you.

The same was true for the silver coins that our grandparents and great grandparents used to use. Before 1965 all quarters, dimes and half dollars were 90% silver but no one really hung on to them as something special because of their silver content.

It was just money and money in that time was mostly silver.
 
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If you have seen what the price of silver has done since the early part of last decade it probably sparked your curiosity. Although the price has fallen back a bit in the past few months silver was approaching it’s nominal high of around $50 per ounce and it seems like in the long run we can expect to see it head back towards that mark again.

After all has the Federal Reserve stopped creating new money for circulation both in the digital and physical worlds? Nope, not really. Other central banks around the world seem about as enthusiastic about money printing as well and the United States government certainly isn’t in a good financial situation.

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Should you buy a bag of silver quarters? Well, if you want my short answer I’d have to say yes. Of course if you went with that advice you’d be going solely on my inclinations unless you’ve done some research into the potential benefits of buying silver quarters before.

If you haven’t looked into silver as an investment or form of savings protection now is a good time to get started. I’ll give you a brief overview though.

Over the years silver and gold have been the primary metals valued by people the world over and as a result used for currency. They’ve been tested over time and whenever societies lose their connection to silver and gold as the base for their money you can be sure that eventually their currency lost value.

Sometimes the loss of value and mistrust of paper money and other fiat currencies was so severe that hyper inflationary events occurred (because the money kept being printed by authorities and everyone wanted to be rid of it since they saw that it was being devalued).

A few countries that experienced severe inflation are Hungary, Zimbabwe and Germany. There have been many others as well however the above examples were some of the worst from a standpoint of the percentage level the inflation rate reached.

Throughout such times people who had the foresight to put money into precious metals -like buying a bag of silver quarters (or other form of silver)- did much better at maintaining their quality of life even when the value of other people’s savings were being wiped out. Other folks with access to valuable real goods that could be sold for increasingly higher prices as inflation rose did OK too.

In the U.S. we’ve seen the price of silver rise from a low of around $4.25 in 2001 to nearly $50 per ounce and now settle for a time around $32/per ounce. Many experts expect the price to rise to $70 per ounce and beyond as the financial situation in the United States and around the world has not been resolved in a positive way and the Federal Reserve continues it’s policy of massive new money creation.

You can always count on long periods of monetary expansion eventually having the effect of increasing the general price level as well as drastically spiking particular sectors as we saw in the housing market in the past decade.

As I mentioned above the structural financial problems in the United States and many other countries have not been fixed. This means that going forward we are likely to see more rather than less turmoil and if the central bankers of the world follow the only playbook they seem to have we will also see increasing inflation.

This is why buying a bag of silver quarters is a good idea. Of course you don’t have to buy a whole bag and they don’t even have to be quarters. Silver bullion bars and rounds are also an excellent way to get started. What matters most at this point is simply the getting started part since as the money supply increases we can expect the price of silver to go up as well.

From checking out the search data it looks like a popular question from Silver Quarters Central readers is: When were silver quarters replaced with the modern quarters that contain no silver and are worth much less?

The short answer is that the Washington style silver quarters were changed from silver to base metal composition in the mid-1960s and the last 90% silver quarters were dated 1964. There were a few silver quarters minted after that time but they were for commemorative purposes and not for general circulation.

So if you are looking to buy silver quarters you want to make sure you get only those dated 1964 or earlier. It’s actually pretty easy to tell the silver quarters from the modern zinc and copper coins.

They feel different, look a little different and make a unique sound when you jingle them in your pocket. If you’re really not sure check out the edge of the coin. We call modern coins clad or sandwich coins because when you look at the edge of the coin you can see different types of metal and it resembles a sandwich or an Oreo cookie.

Silver quarters show the same solid silver color on the edge as you’ll see on the face. As I’ve mentioned before here on the site, now is the time to get started accumulating silver quarters or some other type of silver as a way to protect your savings from the financial turmoil that’s going on around the world.

Saving in the form or silver and gold especially helps to protect your savings from eroding away slowly due to fast paced inflation.

In an earlier post I answered a question from a Silver Quarters Central reader who was wondering about how they should go about selling some silver quarters.

In the course of mentioning a few ways to make the sale (local coin shops, Craigslist etc) I said that it seems like keeping the quarters would actually be the best way to go.

Since it seems like over the course of the next few years the price of silver will continue to rise it kind of automatically makes sense to me to accumulate silver rather than sell it unless one’s financial situation makes spendable cash a priority.

While I’m not a real expert on the silver market I do read about what ‘experts’ think on the topic but for someone just finding out some things about silver my view might not make much sense.

Maybe if we make up a little story about one of the reasons why it’d be good to own more silver rather than less right now it’ll help to see the situation in a new light.

Richard’s Story

The year is 2007 (not long ago right?) and Richard is having a hard time making ends meet. His salary as a school principal is going up. It goes up by the day actually but oddly enough whenever he goes for groceries it seems the cost of his favorite coffee and the eggs he has for breakfast goes up at least as fast.

In fact just a few days ago the price of eggs was HALF what it is today and everyone expects to pay double or triple the current price next week as well.

Richard’s neighbor is a business owner who runs a small hardware store and even though he’s a regular guy and has always been a model citizen just yesterday the police led him away in handcuffs. Richard wasn’t home when it happened but the whole neighborhood knew why he was arrested. Drug dealing? Domestic violence…?

Nope, his neighbor had raised prices on some of the items for sale in his hardware store. There weren’t many items for sale anymore because suppliers didn’t have things available unless you paid in foreign currency.

To stay in business the hardware store owner had to keep up with the cost of buying goods however a new law had gone into effect stating that it was unacceptable to raise prices without approval from the newly created local price administration. They never gave approval to most business owners.

Richard had tried to withdraw his money from the bank months ago when prices were lower so he could buy some things to barter with in the future but banks were not allowing withdrawals due to…yep…another new law.

Richard wasn’t really sure how the country got into the mess it was in but he did now that things seemed to be headed down hill and in some parts of the country people were saying it was already almost impossible to buy the weekly groceries unless you had a solid foreign currency or some silver or gold. Even a little went much, much farther than the money you had in the bank (and couldn’t get out).

So you’re probably wondering where Richard lived right? Well as I mentioned this is a completely fictional story but this is the kind of thing that happened in Zimbabwe in 2007 and 2008. I know you probably don’t live in Zimbabwe but it seems that the head of the central bank there learned a lot from the US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.

The policies he pursued weren’t all that different than the path our government officials seem to be following now. While U.S. Citizens may not experience exactly the same situation as folks in Zimbabwe did we are headed for harder times ahead and we have already seen the value of our currency decline.

Saving some of your money in the form of silver quarters, dimes or silver bullion seems like a good, easy way to help ensure that you’ll be able to buy the groceries and other things your family needs down the road in case we do experience significant levels of inflation here in the future.

A Silver Quarters Central reader recently asked about what the best way to sell some pre-1964 silver quarters was.

It seemed like something other folks would find helpful so I’ll post my response below.

Where to Sell Silver Quarters:

“Well, if your quarters are all regular circulated quarters (quarters that have been used over the years and not spotless shiny specimens) then they are currently worth about $5.69 each according to Coinflation. You can see the value chart here:

http://www.coinflation.com/silver_coin_values.html

If I were you I’d hang onto them since I believe silver will rise in price considerably over the next few years. It’s at $31.40 per ounce today but it seems possible that over the next few years it could be in the $100-150 per ounce range.

If you really need to sell them I would take them to a local coin shop or pawn shop and ask what they will give. Check the link above to Coinflation before you go and don’t take much less than the value listed there. The price will change from day to day so be aware of that.

You could also advertise on Craigslist in the collectibles category at no cost.”

I’ll reiterate that currently it seems that buying silver quarters is what most people should be interested in doing however if financial circumstances dictate that you need to sell those are a couple ways to go about it.

When you get your feet back underneath you financially speaking then perhaps you can begin to accumulate silver again.