Trading Silver Quarters for Clad in 1965

[Know Common Cents]

I was a pretty small guy back at the intro of clad coinage in the post-Kennedy era. I did read Coin World any visited the local coin shop whenever I had sufficient lawn mowing money.

I remember seeing and holding my first clad quarter. I knew the mint had been banging them out by the gazillions, but it took them awhile to land in my central Ohio hometown. Of course, I knew silver had value, but we were just used to having it there ALL the time. These new clads seemed different. I never expected them to be worth a king's fortune, but decided I'd better have some just in case these first ones may just be something special.

It was at the local bowling alley on Saturday morning for my league. The counter guy had just opened a roll of them and was showing them to everyone. Well, I thought any coin like that attracting all that attention must be the thing to have. My net worth at the time was less than $3.00, but I decided to go for broke and trade 10 of my silver quarters for 10 of the clads. I put those 1965 clads in an envelope for safe keeping. (I would've opted for a time capsule if one had been available.) I still have them. In the later 1960s and early 1970s they made a couple trips to the coin dealer's shop and even a coin show, but nobody wanted them. Pulling the remaining silver coins from circulation was all the rage and clad coinage was only a cheap substitute for the once-regal coinage of these United States.

Let's review my transaction some 46 years ago. My 1965 clad quarters are still worth $2.50. Problem is that doesn't even buy a gallon of gas anymore. Those 10 silver quarters I swapped would now bring about $56.00 for their silver content alone. Something like 17 gallons of gas even at today's panic pricing levels.

The lesson to this is never overlook anything of intrinsic value that can be acquired at a nominal cost. I still get the occasional 1965 clad quarter in change and it brings a smile to me for a cheap lesson learned. Those clads have worn in circulation just about as well as I have over the last 46 years. Give me silver and lots of it!

[TXBullion]

Nice story and thanks for sharing it with us.

[argent_pur]

It's great to hear stories from people that were there! At the time of the conversion, was anyone talking about gov't debasing the coinage as a bad thing? Was there anyone saying "hey, you should really get your hands on all the silver you can!"? Or, did all that come way later?

Thanks,
jim

[beauanderos]

I was thirteen in 1964, and I really can't remember if that was from the same year that I recall this memory, or probably one or two years before. I was a hustling little neighborhood pest, bothering all the other homes on the block with offers to wash windows, wash cars, recycle newspapers, pull weeds, etc for 25 cents an hour... all because my folks were too cheap to give me more than ten cents a week allowance. I remember one time, after spending about a week in Grace Longenecker's back yard, pulling every darned weed in her huge garden (I think she paid me out of pity, not for the work accomplished) that I received a double handful of Franklin halves (likely some Walkers mixed in, but I remember Ben) worth $25. I recall that, for that one frozen instant in time, I knew what it felt like to be "rich." It was impossible that there could be more money in the world than what I had cupped in my hands, then transferred to the drooping pockets of my cut-offs. The memory of holding those Ben's is probably what led to turning me into a silver fanatic as an adult. I thank Grace for that (pun intended).

[Pennybug]

Man those are GREAT stories!... You guys should be writers or something. I swear... the voice of the guy from "A Christmas Story"... the adult version of Ralphie as he was... was telling those two stories as I read them!...

I love to hear stories of certain historical events and what REALLY happened then. Thanks for sharing.

[aristobolus]

Back in 1968, my family still had a B/W TV. I was only four at the time, and saw an ad for what was advertised at the time as a "Color Screen" to put on your Television; it was "Color TV" for the working class folk. So I did what a four year old found quite logical at the time; I sent in seven Morgan Dollars to pay for the flimsy thing. Why my family allowed me to do such a thing I do not know, but the results of the "Color TV" were atrocious! Within a few months the old man broke down and bought a real Color TV. That helped soothe the pain of my taking the Morgan dollars my Grandma had given me, but it is quite possible psychologically that I am still trying to recover those Silver dollars by hoarding bullion today.

[IdahoCopper]

In the mid-60s My father was pulling a lot of silver coins out of circulation and putting them containers. However, when it was possible to sell them for face plus 6% he sold them in a flash, because "it was more interest than the banks were paying."

To this day, that was a lesson to me in just how completely programmed the Sheeple are. Baaaahhhhhh!