1965: Don't Hoard Your Silver, President Says of Coins

[ardorlan]

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=3P ... lver&hl=en

[AGCoinHunter]

Yeah, hoarding them wont be profitable. Right...

[ardorlan]

Its only gone up 2910.92%
That is a yearly compound return of 7.44%

Which is pretty good as I consider Silver (and other PMs for that matter) pretty much risk free since unlike GM it can't go BK

[scrapper2010]

Thanks for posting. It's neat to go back and read old newspaper articles like that one. Especially anything having to do with PM's.

[Tourney64]

Surprised we don't see the same article about copper soon.

[ardorlan]

What was silver worth per pound back in 1965?

[csb3tennessee]

Really neat article- thanks for posting.

[shinnosuke]

Yeah, Lyndon Baines Johnson is the same guy who fraudulently won his US Senate seat way back when. An investigator of said fraud was found dead, shot in the back several times with a .22 rifle. The local constabulary declared it a suicide. So you can trust Johnson on silver.

[Sheikh_yer_Bu'Tay]

What was silver worth per pound back in 1965?

It took 14 silver dimes to make an troy ounce of pure silver. That means silver was worth $1.40 per ozt in 1963. Do you want Troy pounds? Or, English pounds?

[beauanderos]

What was silver worth per pound back in 1965?

It took 14 silver dimes to make an troy ounce of pure silver. That means silver was worth $1.40 per ozt in 1963. Do you want Troy pounds? Or, English pounds?

I've heard $1.29 an ounce more than a few times.

[didou]

Surprised we don't see the same article about copper soon.

Not sure they will, most people are completely unaware and uninterested in knowing that, or in hoarding.

When Canada change from cupro-nickel to steel it was a very silent event, along with the facts that they are recovering the nickels from the circulation.
There is already ads on Coinstar and in many bank asking Canadian to turn their old pig bank full of cents for "recycling" and be "environment friendly".
http://www.mint.ca/store/mint/learn/coi ... ng-1200014

And they don't recover the metal in penny yet nor did they make a decision to eliminate it, even if most of them are make of Zinc today (some of them are steel but they seem to have switched to only Zinc in the recent year).

[RR GUY]

For a while, this was indeed true, it didn't make economic sense to hoard coins. If you use the rule of 72, a 1965 quarter (less silver) was worth abour $4 in 2000 dollars. In 2000 silver was trading for $5.20 an ounce thus making a silver quarter worth about $1.10 or so in melt value. For those 35 annual periods, you would have earned a better return in treasuries or income producing real estate. Things haven't indeed changed all that much. $4 in 2000 is worth about $8 today which is just a little more than the value of one silver quarter. Silver has basically just about kept up with inflation. We all believe that intrinsically silver is worth more, and that is why we continue to invest in and hold silver coins.

[ed_vantage17]

Interesting story and it's from my home town newspaper, the Toledo Blade. That's extra coolness for me.

[njoElec]

Don't worry - we'll all have our shining moment when we are told not to hoard our nickels and pre-82 pennies!!

[Rob72830]

For a while, this was indeed true, it didn't make economic sense to hoard coins. If you use the rule of 72, a 1965 quarter (less silver) was worth abour $4 in 2000 dollars. In 2000 silver was trading for $5.20 an ounce thus making a silver quarter worth about $1.10 or so in melt value. For those 35 annual periods, you would have earned a better return in treasuries or income producing real estate. Things haven't indeed changed all that much. $4 in 2000 is worth about $8 today which is just a little more than the value of one silver quarter. Silver has basically just about kept up with inflation. We all believe that intrinsically silver is worth more, and that is why we continue to invest in and hold silver coins.

RR Guy, I don't quite follow you. As far as I know, a 1965 quarter has never been worth $4 because 1965 quarters had no silver in them. Last silver quarter was in 1964 until the 40% bicentennial silver proof quarter of 1976. Did you mean 1964?

[Know Common Cents]

With the release of the clad coinage in 1965-66, many prices didn't immediately jump. It was articles like this that tried to lull the public into thinking that all was well and why should anyone mind that their circulating coinage had no intrinsic value.

With each passing month, though, it was quite apparent that the percentage of silver coins in circulation was falling and there were more and more clads in their place. More and more people began hoarding them. I really think the release of the 1964 Kennedy halves was responsible for the big change in awareness of the value of silver. If you had one of the new Kennedys when they were first issued, you were a neighborhood rockstar until your friends got one, too.

Gas prices were still low until the oil embargo in 1972. Average gas price per gallon in the late 1960s was about $0.35. Possible to even pay less when competing stations were having their "gas wars." Lowest I ever paid was $0.20/gal. Clad quarters worked nicely for that. During the oil embargo time, though, many station owners were offering to sell gasoline for US 90% silver. Gas jumped to $0.70/gal and everyone (including me) knew things would never be the same.

The price of silver had been stable at $1.29 per ounce for what, 100 years or more? Inflation and the loss of public confidence was inevitable. Both of those things are on an undeniable upward trajectory. Sad to witness the great times for so many years and now this.......................

My first job out of high school was working at a summer camp for the princely sum of $50 per week. That included room and board, but at the end of the week, I still had lots of money left over for abundant glasses of draft beer (at $0.15 each) and an occasional pack of smokes (at $0.42 each). Too young to legally do both at the time, but the small town people and Barney Fife police officer didn't care as long as no violence and no drunk driving happened.