Odd thing I've noticed in my found in circulation collection

Greetings!

I'm wondering if I'm seeing reality or just a statistical anomaly. I save all
the silver I find in circulation, dimes, quarters, halfs, the occasional dollar.
I went through my tubes last night, trying to find room for some dime I'd just
scored. I currently have 18 full rolls of silver dimes, 20 full rolls of silver
halfs, two rolls of silver dollars (Excluding the Smokers hoard)....and 2.5
rolls of quarters.

Is it just me or are silver quarters drastically under represented in today's
change? Anybody else seeing a statistically significant lack of quarters?

Bruce

Bruce Hickmott wrote:

Greetings!

I'm wondering if I'm seeing reality or just a statistical anomaly. I save all
the silver I find in circulation, dimes, quarters, halfs, the occasional dollar.
I went through my tubes last night, trying to find room for some dime I'd just
scored. I currently have 18 full rolls of silver dimes, 20 full rolls of silver
halfs, two rolls of silver dollars (Excluding the Smokers hoard)....and 2.5
rolls of quarters.

Is it just me or are silver quarters drastically under represented in today's
change? Anybody else seeing a statistically significant lack of quarters?


It is not just you, Bruce. ;-)

I've noticed the very same thing, and it makes sense, actually. Half
Dollars circulate at a glacial rate, something just this side of
complete inertia. Even with all the silver melts that have happened and
all the silver searching that's been done, there are still silver Half
Dollars in rolls in both local vaults and on reserve at the Fed, simply
because the supply is immense and the demand is minimal.

A silver dime has a chance of escaping into circulation and remaining
there. The coin is small, and, especially if it gets discolored, it's
easily overlooked. There is also a 'minimus factor', that when noted as
silver, some consumers will pronounce that to be interesting but not
worth their time, so they spend it at face.

Quarters are large, have big fields and some weight. Of the three
silver denominations (Half, Quarter, dime) that were made between 1935
and 1964, the quarter circulates at by far the swiftest rate. That
means more chances to be detected and sieved out of the cash stream.
Given it's greater weight and bullion content, it also exceeds the
'minimus' threshold, making it worth the trouble to slip into a separate
pocket for hoarding at home or selling to a metals person. ;-)

Alan
'Quarters fly, dimes run and Halves crawl'

"Bruce Hickmott" wrote in message
...
Greetings!

I'm wondering if I'm seeing reality or just a statistical anomaly. I save
all
the silver I find in circulation, dimes, quarters, halfs, the occasional
dollar.
I went through my tubes last night, trying to find room for some dime I'd
just
scored. I currently have 18 full rolls of silver dimes, 20 full rolls of
silver
halfs, two rolls of silver dollars (Excluding the Smokers hoard)....and
2.5
rolls of quarters.

Is it just me or are silver quarters drastically under represented in
today's
change? Anybody else seeing a statistically significant lack of quarters?

I've never, ever encountered a silver quarter in circulation. And it's not
like I don't look. Dimes and half dollars, sure, but not quarters.

Eric

"Bruce Hickmott" wrote in message
...
Greetings!

I'm wondering if I'm seeing reality or just a statistical anomaly. I save
all
the silver I find in circulation, dimes, quarters, halfs, the occasional
dollar.
I went through my tubes last night, trying to find room for some dime I'd
just
scored. I currently have 18 full rolls of silver dimes, 20 full rolls of
silver
halfs, two rolls of silver dollars (Excluding the Smokers hoard)....and
2.5
rolls of quarters.

Is it just me or are silver quarters drastically under represented in
today's
change? Anybody else seeing a statistically significant lack of quarters?

Bruce

Not just you. Weekly, I pick up 40% halfs and occasionally get a 90%
Kennedy, a Franklin or a walker. Roughly once a month I find a silver dime.
Forget it with quarters, though. Maybe three, maybe four in the last 25+
years, if you don't count the 24 that were in a roll from the bank, back in
1980 (ok, they should count, but that is only 4 distinct finds in 25 years).

Add to my finds the two experiences when I was in line at the local
supermarket and the owners were pulling silver quarters that were spent as
rolls from some elderly lady earlier. In one instance I was the one who
caught that the quarters were silver, being handed a few as change, then
looking over into the till and seeing a compartment full of silver quarters.
I asked if I could buy the quarters and the owner's son was close by and
politely said no, then bought the quarters from the till. The cashier, who
knew not the difference between silver and clad, said that an elderly lady
had made her purchase with a quarter roll earlier that day and she had just
opened the roll for use as change.

summary; 25+ years- 4 personal finds, two other known finds.

Bill

On Wed, 20 Oct 2004 18:37:25 GMT, Alan Williams is
alleged to have written:

Bruce Hickmott wrote:

Greetings!

I'm wondering if I'm seeing reality or just a statistical anomaly. I save all
the silver I find in circulation, dimes, quarters, halfs, the occasional dollar.
I went through my tubes last night, trying to find room for some dime I'd just
scored. I currently have 18 full rolls of silver dimes, 20 full rolls of silver
halfs, two rolls of silver dollars (Excluding the Smokers hoard)....and 2.5
rolls of quarters.

Is it just me or are silver quarters drastically under represented in today's
change? Anybody else seeing a statistically significant lack of quarters?


It is not just you, Bruce. ;-)

I've noticed the very same thing, and it makes sense, actually. Half
Dollars circulate at a glacial rate, something just this side of
complete inertia. Even with all the silver melts that have happened and
all the silver searching that's been done, there are still silver Half
Dollars in rolls in both local vaults and on reserve at the Fed, simply
because the supply is immense and the demand is minimal.

A silver dime has a chance of escaping into circulation and remaining
there. The coin is small, and, especially if it gets discolored, it's
easily overlooked. There is also a 'minimus factor', that when noted as
silver, some consumers will pronounce that to be interesting but not
worth their time, so they spend it at face.

Quarters are large, have big fields and some weight. Of the three
silver denominations (Half, Quarter, dime) that were made between 1935
and 1964, the quarter circulates at by far the swiftest rate. That
means more chances to be detected and sieved out of the cash stream.
Given it's greater weight and bullion content, it also exceeds the
'minimus' threshold, making it worth the trouble to slip into a separate
pocket for hoarding at home or selling to a metals person. ;-)

Alan
'Quarters fly, dimes run and Halves crawl'

That makes sense and it sure matches what I'm seeing. Oddly, most of the
quarters in my collection are NOT 1964. Most of them are in the 1940's, with
1945 being the most common.

Bruce

Bruce Hickmott wrote in message . ..
Greetings!

I'm wondering if I'm seeing reality or just a statistical anomaly. I save all
the silver I find in circulation, dimes, quarters, halfs, the occasional dollar.
I went through my tubes last night, trying to find room for some dime I'd just
scored. I currently have 18 full rolls of silver dimes, 20 full rolls of silver
halfs, two rolls of silver dollars (Excluding the Smokers hoard)....and 2.5
rolls of quarters.

Is it just me or are silver quarters drastically under represented in today's
change? Anybody else seeing a statistically significant lack of quarters?

Bruce


There are no dime or quarters which have been in circulation since
1964. When you find a silver coin in circulation it's because someone
spent it despite its being silver. As proof just consider that large
percentages of the population will remove a silver coin if hey see it.
The only way a silver coin could stay in circulation would be for it
to escape ever being owned by one of these individuals. The odds
against this are simply staggering. So how about if a coin just by
chance barely circulates at all? There is a slim chance of this but
for this to be true it would accumulate virtually no wear and has to
do this by mere chance (by definition). Look at the 1965 clads. You
can look at thousands of these and you can't find one with almost no
wear so how would a silver survive this way.

It's also true that since the mid-70's vending machines won't accept
silver coins. This will stop them from circulating freely but it won't
stop them from accumulating some wear. The same is true for wheat
pennies and to a lesser extent for half dollars. With the half
dollars though, most of these are only 40% silver and during most of
the time since 1970 these have been worth less than 80c each in
silver. Many people simply won't be bothered with so small a premium.
Half dollar circulation is so poor that many of them will be out of
circulation for decades at a time. In a sense many of these may
"still" be in "circulation".

It's likely that dimes are simply so small that they either are more
likely to escape detection and accumulate a little in circulation or
that they are below many people's threshold of what's worth saving.
My experience is similar to yours inasmuch as I get three or four
silver dimes for each quarter.

On Wed, 20 Oct 2004 13:23:22 -0400, Bruce Hickmott
wrote:

Greetings!

I'm wondering if I'm seeing reality or just a statistical anomaly. I save all
the silver I find in circulation, dimes, quarters, halfs, the occasional dollar.
I went through my tubes last night, trying to find room for some dime I'd just
scored. I currently have 18 full rolls of silver dimes, 20 full rolls of silver
halfs, two rolls of silver dollars (Excluding the Smokers hoard)....and 2.5
rolls of quarters.

Is it just me or are silver quarters drastically under represented in today's
change? Anybody else seeing a statistically significant lack of quarters?

So that's 900 dimes, 400 halves, and 100 quarters. How long have
you been saving these, since 1963? In the last five years, I've
gotten one war nickel in circulation, and that's it for silver.


--
Ed. Stoebenau
a #143

On Thu, 21 Oct 2004 00:02:32 -0500, Ed. Stoebenau
is alleged to have written:

On Wed, 20 Oct 2004 13:23:22 -0400, Bruce Hickmott
wrote:

Greetings!

I'm wondering if I'm seeing reality or just a statistical anomaly. I save all
the silver I find in circulation, dimes, quarters, halfs, the occasional dollar.
I went through my tubes last night, trying to find room for some dime I'd just
scored. I currently have 18 full rolls of silver dimes, 20 full rolls of silver
halfs, two rolls of silver dollars (Excluding the Smokers hoard)....and 2.5
rolls of quarters.

Is it just me or are silver quarters drastically under represented in today's
change? Anybody else seeing a statistically significant lack of quarters?

So that's 900 dimes, 400 halves, and 100 quarters. How long have
you been saving these, since 1963? In the last five years, I've
gotten one war nickel in circulation, and that's it for silver.

Close, 1968. Though I have sold some, both to collectors and smelters, I've
saved a lot of them.

Where I lived, the grocery stores had change dispensers that would show the
edges of the coins so the cashier could tell when to reload. I would eyeball
each coin changer when I went to the store with my mother and beg and plead for
the cashiers to fish out the silver ones for me. Mom was a good customer, some
fished, some didn't.

I've had a couple of big roll scores as well over the years. Most of the
quarters came from one score, a roll wrapped in the paper of a defunct bank
(Winters) that the folks who bought them out still had in the back of the vault.

Bruce