Finding A Silver Dime
Growing up in the Seventies my Dad taught me to watch my change (and the ground, the pay phones, pretty much everywhere) for coins made with real silver. It wasn’t completely rare to find them either - the last year dimes were minted using pure silver was 1964 so it wouldn’t be out of the question to find one now and again. The quarters of course were the real find, I remember feeling particularly excited when finding a silver quarter among the change handed to me by the cashier from whom I had just bought a pack of Wacky Packs or Pop Rocks. But now in 2004 that has pretty much become a thing of the past. Kids today don’t know that dimes were made out of silver any more than they know what a vinyl record is.
So it was with particular joy that I recently scooped up a shiny dime in the parking lot of a Kwik Trip gas station to find to my amazement an honest to goodness 1964 silver dime.
Felt like a kid again.
Sell your silver dime on eBay!
[UPDATE] - A couple of years after I wrote this post I found both a silver Mercury Dime and a silver Quarter out at a park by using a metal detector. Boy was finding those silver coins ever a big thrill! Something about seeing that coin come out of the ground that really makes you feel good. I didn’t get out using my metal detector this year but I plan to again this summer. I would love to find another silver coin.
I had the pleasures on Christmas Day, 2004 for our first grandchild, a girl, to be born and to also find a silver dime. We had been waiting in the waiting area of the birthing center at one of the hospitals in Raleigh, NC since about 10:00 p m Christmas eve. About 4:00 a m I changed chairs in the area and when I sat down I noticed something shiny in the area between the seat and the arm of the chair. I thought it was trash. I thought for a minute and reached to see what it was. I pulled up a dime. When I got a good look at it I discovered it was a 1954 and then looked closer to see it was silver. What do you suppose the odds are? In a room with 75 to 100 chairs, in a place as busy as the birthing center at a major hospital, that I would find a silver dime. I’m certainly hopeing that kind of luck for my granddaughter.
I never looked at my coins beyond the denomination. So when the soda machine wouldn’t take my dime I was suprisd to find it was a 1954 Silver Dime.
I got a part-time cashiers job a movie rental place while attending college and just today I found as I was counting my drawer $2.30 in silver dimes. They range from 1946-1964. As you might think I quickly exchanged for the coins. This has been my greatest find ever.
hey,
I found one of these dimes when I was a bit yonger I am know 18 and wndering if this dime has any value, could you help me with my question?
I have a l954 silver dime and wondered if it has any value, how can I find out about it. I have other silver monies as well and would like to check them out for value.
A 90% silver dime such as the Roosevelt or “Mercury” dime contains .0715oz of silver, or ~$0.68 with Silver @ 9.50. If the coin is in mint condition and never circulated or got scratched it could be worth slightly higher than the silver melt value.
If silver hits $14 an oz, these coins will be worth a buck a piece!
when i was working in a field a long ways in the country i found a silver dime dated 1937 now that must have been my lucky day. And i alway wanted to know the vaule of.
What is the value of a 1937 silver dime?
April 18th 2006 I got a 1964 silver quarter as change at a conveneant store around the corner… better go back and check for more.
I have a 1943 silver quarter (Washington, with no mint mark) and a 1946 silver dime (Roosevelt) that I found at the convience store that I work at, I was just wondering if you could possibly tell me where to look to find out how much they are currently worth. Thank you so much.
Kerri
I have a whole roll of uncirculated 1961 d dimes i was wondering what they might be worth
I would contact these guys for coin prices:
PCGS, Professional Coin Grading Service
P.O. Box 9458 Newport Beach, CA 92658
Tele: (800) 447-8848 (949) 833-0600
September 5th, 2007. Just found a silver 1964 dime and went online to see what last yewar was they made them. Have always looked at my change for them but it has probably been more than 5 years (maybe 10) that I have found one.
Adam
Well my story is i found 9 in one year. But i do know how much thy are worth. They are from 1956-1964. Well have a bless day. Oct.30,2007
I am a coin collector and a few years ago I got a dime in my change that I noticed looked different from normal. It was more worn than the others and I looked closer and saw it was a 1953, which is definitely silver. Still, they are rare to come across in circulation these days.
I was cleaning out the change at the bottom of my washing machince the other day and found a 1941 silver dime. The markings on them are something I have never seen before, the person on the front who I could not tell who it is, is wearing a fig leaf crown and on the back of the coin looks like a tree with fig leaves.
hehe…”if it hits $14. Presently sitting at $17.40. That dime is worth 12.5 times the face value. Much funnern finding a dollar bill on the ground. Just don’t do anything other than maybe rubbing with your fingers to get the patina off. Easiest way is to get a roll of dimes when you go to the bank. Hold them on edge and look for anything that isn’t copper. Bank wrapped rolls will no doubt have been picked thru, but you can piggy bank em, or turn it in later.
To my surprise, I found a 1964 dime in my change today, which caused me to sniff around and find this website. I was a paperboy circa 1970, and used to separate out the silver dimes and quarters from my collections. It was real easy to do because the edges didn’t have the exposed copper color that you see today, so you could pick ‘em out of the stack. As you might imagine, there were plenty of them back then. But by the time I quit (1974?)they were already thinning out — I’d say about 15% were silver. I also used to separate out “Barr bills.” One of those showed up at a McDonalds a few years ago. Fun!
well not too long ago I was jogging in the beach when I came across a 1873 trade dollar on the sand, I’ve always liked old coins but this coin really made me take a deeper appreciation for them.. SO MUCH HISTORY..
I found a silver dime from 1920 . How much is it worth today ?
Found a 1964 silver dime about ten min. ago in my back yard useing a mettle detector….whooodogy!
About 12 years ago I worked part time in an arcade. A bunch of kids came in and traded in a bunch of silver dimes for quarters (about $100 worth). They played all day which made us wonder how they did it. We checked the machines and found they had used a bunch of silver quarters when they ran out of the dime money. We bought about $120 dollars in silver quarters and $100 dollars in silver dimes and split them between the two of us. I still have them to this day.