Surprise at Playground

Fingerlakes119 · Sep 14, 2013

I stopped at a very small town park on my way back from picking up a grape pie. Thought I would search the playground. It didn't look too old but I gave it a try. I started to find the usual clad coins and then I was shocked to see a Canadian silver dime. I also found a lead ball in an area that was under construction.

mercury1 · Sep 14, 2013

That is a nice surprise but not that surprising. People in the US are often unsure about silver Canadian, even if they know 64 is a special year for US coins. Sometimes when I'm CRH cwr of dimes and there's a lot of Canadian, I get lucky and get Canadian silver.

CASPER-2 · Sep 14, 2013

I don't think its silver - what is the date ?

The alloy was 92.5% silver, 7.5% copper from 1858 to 1919. From 1920 to 1968 the composition was 80% silver, 20% copper, which let Canada continue producing silver coins for a couple of years longer than the U.S. where the alloy was a more expensive 90%/10%.

By 1968 the rise in silver prices caught up with Canada too. In mid-year the composition was changed to 50% each, but by the end of the year even that was too costly to make coins so it was replaced with pure nickel.

mercury1 · Sep 15, 2013

CASPER-2 said:
I don't think its silver - what is the date ?

The alloy was 92.5% silver, 7.5% copper from 1858 to 1919. From 1920 to 1968 the composition was 80% silver, 20% copper, which let Canada continue producing silver coins for a couple of years longer than the U.S. where the alloy was a more expensive 90%/10%.

By 1968 the rise in silver prices caught up with Canada too. In mid-year the composition was changed to 50% each, but by the end of the year even that was too costly to make coins so it was replaced with pure nickel.

The pic is pretty clear. It's 1966. 80%.