Why are silver quarters far and few between?

[Ben Cartwright SASS]

What is it with Quarters, I almost never find a silver one. Another bank bag today, $600 worth not a single silver

 

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[Argentium]

The theories that I've heard are : 1. Quarters circulate constantly so any silvers get hoovered up immediately by a vastly larger crowd of people transacting them - in contrast to half dollar coins which hardly circulate among the general population with the exception of collectors/CRHers. Then the question arises " why do we still find silver among dime boxes and rolls ?" Clearly dimes circulate heavily - I think the answer is that dimes are really small and thin ,unless you are a collector ,you can miss them easily ! I almost missed one in a roll today - and i was actively searching for silver and I had good light too . I think these theories explain it , but If anyone has different ideas i want to hear them !

 

[Ben Cartwright SASS]

They both make cents ROFL

 

[TxAg]

I agree with Argentium. Quarters being larger and more noticeable get more scrutiny and get siphoned out of circulation more than dimes.

 

[releventchair]

When they quit minting them ,folks started hanging on to them! The dollars and halves were worth a good amount at face value still. Enough perhaps to discourage " hoarding".
Dad tended bar and traded the coins before going to the till with clad for silver. Just set them aside till later....
Still has a stash.

Off topic due to denomination ,but a roller skating rink in the seventies used to have a silver dime night. Give them a silver dime for admission......Somebody was collecting! In the late sixties Dad would send me to the bakery for a day old loaf of bread for a dime ( clad.)

Quarters might have been affordable enough to squirrel , convenient/ easy to spot as previously mentioned when folks started saving 90% ers.

Coin roll hunting is not new. Old references ( Like George Herter) mentioned it quite a while ago.
Decades and decades of folks searching....
Bank deposits or silver dropped to tills from customers break some hoards now and then for multiple reasons ,but do get a few back into circulation.

At least silver coins did not get " called in" by the Feds. when clad and fiat became the new normal!

 

[Zomotion]

I agree with all that has been said above but also have a theory... Maybe better stated as just plain old math.

Since 1999 I think it was when the state quarters started - 5 states a year... Then state parks, territories, etc. 4 new quarters each year by the hundreds of millions. It basically just super saturated quarters into circulation. You have to search more, or filter through more to find what you're looking for.

For example in 1998 about 1.7 billion quarters were minted. In 1999 there were almost 4 billion quarters minted.... and it didn't slow down until about 2005 but still minting about 2.5 billion

I think they can be found, You just have to search through more. Halves were pulled from circulation back in 2002. That's 16 years now of not adding more clad to search through.

 

[Ben Cartwright SASS]

another way to look at it, is ignore the 40% halves and concentrate on the 90%, I have found about 1 90% every 4 boxes, quarters may be the same ratio. You can't count 40% since most people are ignorant of them.

 

[corvettebill]

I think that quarters are hard to find because people use them in vending machines more than any other coin, a d the machines don't take silver coins. So when a quarter doesn't work, people look at it closely. I'm glad vending machines don't take half dollars. If they did, there probably would be a lot less silver than there is now. I also believe that dimes are so small it is really hard to tell silver ones from clad.

 

[Ben Cartwright SASS]

have you tried a silver quarter in a vending machine? I got one back in change from a machine...

I am too cheap to test it myself

 

[Styfflin]

I know it's fun to speculate, but the "why" doesn't matter. Quarters produce the least. Asking why won't change anything.
But here's a strategy you can use to improve your quarter averages. Buy bags of dimes. They're the lowest-valued coin with 90% silver. They don't fill up as fast as quarters. Silver averages are better. If you hit a huge collection dump of dimes at a certain bank, buy bags of all the denominations and hope you get a multi-denomination collection dump. If part of the collection dump is quarters, you will dramatically increase your average silver per dollar amount searched. Search less, find more.
There is the chance you miss the quarter collection dump because quarter bags fill up faster and could be shipped out before the dime bag even fills up. If you have the time and money, buy all bags of all denominations. That way you won't miss anything.

 

[Ben Cartwright SASS]

Bags are hard to get around here. I have asked at the 15 banks with counters withing a 15 mile radius of my home and one did it for 3 bags and then said no more, too much paperwork.

I do have one bank that has sold me a bag of halves, dimes and I went back to the the quarters after hitting big in the halves. Not sure how long they will continue to sell to me, it is a small branch office. She is expecting the halves to take a year to fill... at least they sold me partial bags.

 

[WaterScoop]

Sounds like you will find more silver quarters using a metal detector then roll hunting

 

[TxAg]

Stopped by a "No-Account" bank where I've met the two tellers previously and have gifted them with AU Bi-Centennial halves for selling me half dollar MWRs. I haven't stopped by in about 3 weeks. Laura sees me walking in and opens her cash drawer and pulls out a 1964-D quarter and says she has been saving it for me! She's getting an AU Bi-Centennial Ike next time I stop in! I hope she will continue to save silvers for me....

 

[Ben Cartwright SASS]

First I have found more silver quarters metal detecting when I used to do it, and also found a 1921 Morgan Silver Dollar up in Maine at a boys camp.

I just got back from the coin store, bought a 1993 Premium Silver Proof Set for the branch manager, the ones that open into a display

 

[Dozer D]

Few years ago I got $3000 of CWR's from various other customers, ZERO finds.

 

[ArkieBassMan]

Another thought as to why silver quarters are rare is that even a non-collector can "hear" a silver quarter when receiving change, investigate, and pluck it from circulation. More than once I've had friends that don't collect bring me silver quarters they found because they heard it when getting change from the drive-thru or whatever. To them, it sounded like a slug/something foreign/something that wasn't supposed to be there. Thinking they were getting cheated, they investigated and found the silver. Of course silver dimes are much harder to hear. While I have 100% faith in my ability to search a roll of dimes for silver in complete darkness, I don't believe the majority of your average non-collecting citizens will "hear" a silver dime in their normal day-to-day coin usage.