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.

BTW, there is good reason to be interested in silver coins and bars these days. If you are looking to buy some silver chances are good that you don’t think much of the numbers put out by government connected entities saying that the inflation rate is a low 2 percent or so.

Most of us actually live in the real world and can tell that the value of the dollar is falling rather rapidly due to the slightly more rapid creation of new dollars in digital and paper form.

Buying silver allows us to take advantage of a traditional type of money that holds value relative to goods and services and can give us a little shield to protect our savings from attacks by the Federal Reserve money printers.

You can buy silver in either the form of silver quarters -like we talk about there on Silver Quarters Central- or you can go with more newly minted forms of silver in larger sizes. One ounce bars and rounds are quite common but you can also get 5, 10, 100 and 1000 ounce size bars as well. 5 ounce coins are a bit rare but they do exist and it is a handy medium size if you want something larger than an ounce and smaller than 10 ounces.

You can check your local coin shop for 5 ounce silver coins or bars but you may do better by shopping online at retailers such as Scottsdale Silver (in Arizona naturally enough) and Kitco.

eBay is also an excellent resource for finding all types of precious metals in various sizes. Keep in mind if you are interested in buying gold as well that the best way to buy gold at a good price is typically to get larger 1 ounce coins since the tenth, quarter and half ounce versions typically have a larger premium over the spot price built in. No need to spend more than is necessary.

So hopefully you aren’t too disappointed that the United States Mint didn’t produce 5 ounce silver quarters. As I said the regular quarters made before 1964 are an excellent way to accumulate silver so don’t overlook those.

Whatever type of silver you decide to go with I hope it’s interesting, enjoyable and helps protect your savings for years to come.

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.

Today the quarters you use on a daily basis -assuming you use quarters that much- are not the same as the quarters that were produced before 1965.

For most of American history silver quarters were the norm but the Lyndon Johnson administration decided to stop the production of the 90% silver, 10% copper silver quarters since they were getting embarrassingly expensive to produce.

Today these pre-1965 silver quarters are worth around $5-6 dollars per coin.

The price varies depending on the current per ounce price of silver but since each coin has about 0.2 ounces of silver in it and the price is nearly $30 as this is being written the value of one silver quarter is a bit over $5.

Are Silver Quarters Worth Anything to Me?

Of course it isn’t much use to have something that you don’t value unless you can trade it for something which you do value.

Now in my opinion you should value silver quarters because of their silver content which is a much more stable form of savings than the United States dollar which has been going down hill for some time and seems likely to continue that trend if Federal Reserve actions are any indication.

If, however, you don’t want to save your money in the form of silver quarters then you will be able to exchange your silver for cash quite easily.

First you want to determine how many ounces of silver you have. If you have American coins you can use the site Coinflation.com to quickly look up the current value of your silver coins.

Once you know how many ounces you have and what the current price of silver is per ounce you can prepare to sell your coins:

• On eBay
• Craigslist
• At a coin shop

Typically coin, pawn and metal buying shops will pay you a bit less than the spot price of silver. Just make sure you know what the current spot price is before you go so that you know you are getting a good price.

Another thing I would recommend is to hang on to your silver until a time when the price is a bit higher than the recent average or recent lows.

Right now silver is a bit low and it isn’t an ideal time to sell. If one had to sell silver a few months ago was a good time since the price had risen to some 48 or so dollars per ounce.

Now that you know what silver quarters are really worth at present you know why it got my attention when you asked, “Are silver quarters worth anything?” :)

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

The United States has a nice little history of producing and using silver coinage.

You can still find silver quarters, dimes and half dollars quite easily -at coin shops and online- but they are all the pre-1965 90% silver coins that were made prior to the Johnson administrations decision to end the production of silver coinage.

The were still a few silver-ish coins that made it past that fateful decision. The silver clad coins you are likely to find are the:

• 40% Silver Kennedy Half Dollar (1965-1970)

• 40% Silver Eisenhower Dollar (1971-1976)

Don’t Get Confused by Silver Clad Coins!

It’s easy to get confused and recall both of these as half dollar coins so remember that the Kennedy coin was a HALF DOLLAR and was made both in 90% (1964) and 40% (1965-1970) silver variations.

The Eisenhower coin is a DOLLAR coin and the 40% silver version was made available only as a collectible coin although you may find some with wear from circulation if they were introduced into circulation by accident.

In any case both of these 40% silver coins could be considered silver clad coins since less than half of the metal content is from silver.

The other 60% of the coin’s metal content is copper.

These coins were the final grasp at value in an era where coins slipped from mainly silver items into all zinc and or copper discs.

If you are interested in buying older coins for their silver value you will be better off buying the 90% silver variants since you will get a greater concentration of silver for the space they take up.

You can read more about finding places to buy silver quarters right here.

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.

Buying Silver Coins as an Investment

If you are buying silver coins as an investment then you may have more of a short term outlook and/or are willing to trade in and out of the metal as the price rises and falls.

You probably should only take this approach if you have the time and inclination to keep up with the latest news in the silver market and plan to check the price daily.

There have been some pretty wild swings in the price of silver in the past couple years which gives quite a bit of opportunity for speculation and profit but you have to get the timing right and not doubt yourself too much in order to be successful with this approach.

Just in 2011 we saw the price of silver move from the low 30s per ounce up to nearly $50 per ounce and then back down to around 32 dollars and it’s current low of below $29 an ounce.

Obviously there is a lot of opportunity to pick up some cheaper silver and sell when the price rises by $10 an ounce or so.

If you have plenty of cash to work with this approach might work OK as long as you don’t find yourself in the position where you must sell your silver when the price is lower.

Silver Coins as a Form of Savings

This approach is a bit more down my line and works well if you don’t feel the need to constantly check the current price of silver but believe that over the long term the price of silver in dollar terms is trending up.

Again, you don’t want to have too much of your savings in silver such that you run short on cash and need to sell silver at an inopportune time which would cause you to lose money.

The advantage of using silver coins -or some other form of silver- as savings is that you can help protect your savings from the erosion in value you would otherwise experience due to the devaluation of the dollar.

As you may know the Federal Reserve in the United States has taken up a policy -really since it’s inception- of creating new money sometimes at a faster rate than at others but always to some extent.

This constant drip (or flood) of fresh money has resulted in a consistent fall in the value of the dollar when compared with real goods since the Federal Reserve was established in 1913.

Since governments generally follow a similar playbook when they get themselves in trouble we can look at the current financial problems of the Untied States government and expect that they will resort to more inflation, capital controls, wage and price controls and other damaging measures to try to “fix” the economic problems we are in.

Because of what we can expect from the government in the U.S. and other governments and central banks around the world we should all be interested in precious metals to some extent.

You’ll have to decide whether you view silver coins as an investment or a form of savings and proceed accordingly. Whichever decision you make owning some silver -whether silver bullion bars, Eagles or scrap silver coins- certainly seems better than owning none.

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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.
 

When Scrap Silver Coins Were Money

Even the paper bills were backed by gold until 1933. What I mean by the phrase “backed by gold” is that it was explicitly written on each bill that you could bring it in to the Treasury and receive gold in exchange for the paper bill.

Makes you wish you could go back in time doesn’t it? After all gold is now over 1,600 dollars per ounce. Back then it was a bit over $20 an ounce then about $35 and then starting in ‘33 you could no longer trade your paper for gold.

But back to the silver…

So to folks in the 60s and earlier, silver quarters were common but once their production stopped -and even a little before- they became more special since the coins which replaced them had no silver at all.

People now valued these coins for their silver content and yet many of them were worn, scuffed and generally in rough condition.

Yet they were still more valuable than the new zinc and copper coins.

So what do you call something that is valuable yet rough and abused? That is why these types of silver coins became known as scrap silver coins. It was a way to differentiate them from brilliant, clean and un-circulated coins that are valued by collectors for more than just their silver content.

The Value of Scrap Silver Coins Today

Scrap silver coins are still quite valuable. Actually in recent months they have been more valued in dollar terms than at any time for several decades with silver quarters running at $5-7 per coin.

Right now silver can be a good way to begin protecting your savings from the inflation we are experiencing right now and the more serious inflation many experts expect we will experience in a few years time due to profligate money creation by the Federal Reserve and spending habits to match by the United States government.

So, if you get a chance pick up some scrap silver coins from a coin shop or online retailer (or eBay) sometime soon!

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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.

When times like this come many people turn to proven alternative currencies. It’s odd to call gold and silver alternative currencies since in the bigger picture they are standard currencies. It’s only in the past few hundred years that they have been abandoned more and more in favor of fiat paper currency like the dollar, the yen or the euro.

If you believe that paper money will continue to lose value over the next few years then buying some form of silver or gold is a great way to protect your savings from inflation. For some folks investing in silver means buying the actual silver coins. It’s a great way to go about it too.

Silver Coins on eBay

One place that is great for those getting started is eBay. There are many, many different types of silver coins on eBay to choose from but if you are interested in silver for it’s own sake you shouldn’t get distracted by all the rare coins and mint errors valuable for their age or uniqueness.

Stick to the standard Washington design silver quarters, Roosevelt dimes and Franklin half dollars. You can get these coins in circulated condition for low premiums over the spot price of silver.

You can also get silver bullion, rounds and private coins on eBay if you are so inclined. Some folks see benefit in having silver coins that were issued by the U.S. government while others like myself prefer privately minted bullion which also has the advantage of coming in convenient one ounce sizes which are easy to do math with than the odd .715 ounce per face dollar value system when judging the amount of silver in a given number of quarters, dimes or half dollars.

Whatever type of silver coins you decide to purchase on eBay just be sure to check the reputation of the seller and double check shipping costs and your math to make sure you aren’t buying at a ridiculous premium to the spot silver price. No need to spend extra money when getting your silver!

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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.

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 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.

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.