walking by a pepsi machine I spied a quarter in the coin return tray and after plucking it out looked it over and it was a shiny 1944! First one I have found in the wild in several years
You would be surprised how much silver is still spent . . . buying newspapers. My wife had gotten to the point that she could pour the change into a bag and 100% of the time tell you whether there was silver or not.
Got a 1976 S Bi-Centennial quarter (Silver Proof) that way, along with a really nice collection of Mercs as well as Rosies, Washington quarters and even several war nickles.
Not so much silver after they changed to 50 cent daily papers in the mid 1990's.