Finding the Silver in a Coffee Can of Change

Check the date first

Dimes, quarters and half dollars carrying a date of 1964 or earlier are 90% silver, without exception. Reading dates and setting those aside will locate the overwhelming majority of what is worth finding.

Cents and ordinary nickels contain no silver in any year at all, so they can come out of the pile immediately and save you time.

Then check the edge

Stack the coins on their sides and study the stripe. Anything minted after 1964 shows an obvious copper band running between two pale outer layers. A silver coin shows one continuous tone all the way around with no band at all.

It reads instantly once you have seen one of each, and it works identically on dimes, quarters and halves. A full can can be run through this way in a couple of minutes.

Then check for the two oddities

Nickels dated between 1942 and 1945 carrying an oversized mint letter above the building on the reverse are 35% silver. Nickel metal was needed for the war effort, so the composition changed, and these are the only silver nickels the country ever produced.

Kennedy halves from 1965 through 1970 are 40% silver rather than the earlier 90%. Still comfortably worth more than face value, simply not as much per coin as the pre-1965 pieces.

• 90% silver: dimes, quarters, halves dated 1964 or earlier
• 40% silver: Kennedy halves dated 1965 through 1970
• 35% silver: nickels dated 1942 to 1945 with a large reverse mint letter
• 92.5% silver: anything stamped sterling or .925 on flatware and jewelry

Then leave it alone

Do not clean what you find, and do not spend it. Pre-1965 coins still function perfectly in a vending machine, and an enormous quantity of American silver disappeared exactly that way over the past sixty years.

Bring the container as it stands rather than only the coins you flagged. What separates a good sale from an average one is the pass through the ordinary-looking pieces, and self-selected piles almost never contain the coin that mattered.