coin guide

How to Tell If a Coin Is Silver

Check the date first: a U.S. dime, quarter or half dollar dated 1964 or earlier is silver. Then look at the edge for a copper stripe and put the coin on a scale, since NGC lists a 90% silver quarter at 6.25 grams and a clad quarter weighs 5.67 grams. That's how to tell if a coin is silver in most cases, and none of it marks the coin.

The date and the edge decide most coins, and the scale confirms them. A magnet and the ring test each answer a narrower question.

Start With the Date and Denomination

For U.S. coins the date is the strongest test you have, because Congress tied the date to the metal. The Coinage Act of 1965 barred the new clad coins from carrying any date earlier than 1965, and it required every 90% silver coin struck after the act to be dated 1964. A regular-issue Roosevelt dime or Washington quarter dated 1964 is silver. One dated 1965 isn't.

Half dollars take one extra step. Halves dated 1964 or earlier are 90% silver, the Walking Liberty, the Franklin and the 1964 Kennedy among them, and NGC lists Kennedy half dollars dated 1965 to 1970 at 40% silver. Morgan dollars (1878 to 1921) and Peace dollars (1921 to 1935) are 90% silver too, at 26.73 grams each. Circulated coins like these trade as junk silver, a name that means no collector premium, not poor metal.

The 90% standard dates from an act of January 18, 1837. Older coins are silver too, struck to the 1792 standard of 1,485 parts in 1,664, or 89.24%.

Read the Edge for a Copper Stripe

Turn the coin on its side. The U.S. Mint describes today's dime, quarter and half dollar as clad coins: an inner core of copper under an outer layer of a different metal. On a dime or quarter that core shows as a copper-colored band around the edge. A 90% silver coin is one alloy all the way through, so its edge is the same silver-gray from face to face.

President Lyndon B. Johnson gave the public this test on July 23, 1965, the day he signed the act. The new dimes and quarters, he said, would have faces of the 5-cent piece's alloy bonded to a core of pure copper: "They will show a copper edge."

The 40% half dollar is where the edge test gets weak. PCGS describes it as silver-clad: two outer layers of 80% silver bonded to a core that PCGS gives as 79% copper. The rest of that core is silver, so don't expect the bright copper band of a clad quarter. On a half dollar, go by the 1965 to 1970 date.

Weigh the Coin Against Its Published Weight

Silver is denser than the copper and nickel that replaced it, so a silver coin outweighs a clad coin of the same size. NGC puts the gap for dimes at 2.5 grams in silver against 2.27 grams clad, and it names the scale as the first check for a coin suspected of being struck on the wrong metal.

The silver weights are NGC's and the others are the U.S. Mint's current specifications. Quarters sit 0.58 gram apart and 90% half dollars 1.16 grams apart, which any pocket scale reading to 0.1 gram will show. Dimes are only 0.232 gram apart, so a scale that reads to 0.01 gram is the safer tool. Those gaps are far wider than a genuine coin's normal variation: the American Numismatic Association (ANA) says in its guide to counterfeits that the mass of almost every U.S. coin stays within 1% of its specification, which is about 0.06 gram on a silver quarter.

A kitchen scale that rounds to the whole gram shows 6 for either quarter. If that's the scale you have, weigh 10 quarters at once. At 6.25 grams each, 10 silver quarters come to 62.5 grams. At the Mint's 5.67 grams, 10 clad quarters come to 56.7 grams.

Two readings need care. Wear takes metal with it: federal rules describe worn coins as "reduced in weight by natural abrasion," so a circulated silver coin reads a little under the table, and one worn nearly smooth can give back a good part of the gap. A 40% half at 11.50 grams sits only 0.16 gram above a clad half, too close to call on most scales. The date settles both.

Why Nickels Need a Different Test

The scale and the edge both fail on Jefferson nickels. NGC notes that a 1942 silver-alloy nickel weighs the same as a copper-nickel one, 5.00 grams either way. The Mint points out that the nickel is the only circulating coin that isn't clad, so a solid gray edge on a nickel tells you nothing.

The mint mark is the test. Wartime nickels are 35% silver, and the U.S. Mint moved their mint mark from the right of Monticello to above the dome to signal the new metal, and used a P for Philadelphia for the first time. Look for a large P, D or S there. NGC's rule is that every nickel dated 1943, 1944 or 1945 should be the silver alloy, while a 1942 is silver only with the large mark. They're sold as war nickels.

One trap: a 1944 nickel with no P above the dome isn't a rare silver error. PCGS identifies it as a Henning counterfeit. Francis LeRoy Henning made fake nickels dated 1939, 1944, 1946, 1947 and 1953 in a base-metal alloy of copper and nickel, and he left the P off his 1944.

What a Magnet and the Ring Test Can Prove

Neither test identifies silver. What each one does is rule something out.

The Magnet Finds Steel

A magnet tells you whether there's steel in a coin. The Royal Mint explains that its 1p and 2p coins, copper-plated steel since September 1992, are attracted to magnets because of the iron in the steel core, while the bronze coins they replaced aren't magnetic. A coin that jumps to a magnet has steel in it, and no U.S. silver coin does.

Passing proves much less. A clad quarter has no steel in it either (the Mint lists it as 8.33% nickel and 91.67% copper), so a magnet can't separate it from a silver one. Use the magnet to rule a coin out, never to rule one in.

The Ring Test Finds Cast Copies

The ring test detects how a piece was made. NGC's counterfeit detection guide says cast fakes and electrotypes usually don't ring like a struck coin when lightly tapped. Cast pieces are often base metal with a grainy texture, and electrotypes often show a seam on the edge and the wrong weight.

To try it without marking the coin, balance it flat on a fingertip and tap the rim lightly with a plastic pen, and don't drop it on a hard surface. A clear ring says the coin was struck, and clad coins are struck too.

Silver Coins Dated After 1964

The date rule covers coins made for circulation, and collector issues break it. The U.S. Mint says some collector versions of its circulating coins are made of silver, and NGC lists the silver Eisenhower dollars of 1971 to 1976 at 40% silver. Give any coin dated after 1964 that came from a collector set the edge and scale checks before you call it clad.

Mint errors break the rule too. NGC records a 1965 dime and a 1965 quarter struck on 90% silver blanks, and a small number of 1971-D and 1977-D Kennedy halves struck on silver-clad blanks. Its advice is to weigh a suspect coin first, since the heavier silver shows on the scale, and then to have it certified.

What Home Tests Miss

None of the checks above catches an altered coin. NGC warns that an altered date is deceptive because the original coin was genuine, with the correct details, weight and composition, and only the date is wrong. An added mint mark works the same way, and NGC has seen them glued on and even pushed up from inside through a hole drilled in the edge.

Outright copies are easier to catch when you use the tests together. The same ANA guide makes the point that weight and diameter checked as a pair give fairly accurate results on low-quality fakes, and that counterfeiters often get the edge reeding wrong. The Perth Mint gives the reason the pairing works: fakes are often tungsten or lead under a thin coat of gold or silver, and base metal is highly unlikely to match a genuine piece's published weight and dimensions at once. Our guide on how to detect counterfeit precious metals goes further.

A grading service closes the question without harming the coin. NGC uses X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy, which The Royal Mint describes as analyzing a metal's composition without touching or damaging the item, and it won't put a coin it finds not genuine in a holder. That's the assurance behind graded coins.

Between the pocket scale and the grading service sit electronic metal testers, which the ANA describes as determining a coin's composition noninvasively from its electrical characteristics. Leave acid kits, files and scratch tests alone. They remove metal, and the damage is permanent.

Marks on Silver Goods and Modern Bullion Coins

Don't look for a purity stamp on an old U.S. coin, because there isn't one. Fineness marks belong to silver goods, where federal law makes them a legal claim. The National Stamping Act reserves the words "coin" and "coin silver" for articles that are 900 parts per thousand silver, the same standard as a 1964 quarter.

Modern bullion coins do state their metal. The American Silver Eagle is fixed by statute at 31.103 grams of .999 fine silver, and the same law requires the inscription "1 Oz. Fine Silver." At 31.103 grams, that ounce is a troy ounce, the unit silver is weighed in.

Some silver coins add security features you can check with a magnifier. The Royal Canadian Mint machines radial lines across the Silver Maple Leaf and laser-engraves a micro security mark on it, and coins dated 2015 and later can be authenticated through its Bullion DNA system.

Verified Silver in Our Catalog

We verify every item we sell with modern testing equipment and numismatic expertise, and we're an authorized dealer for PCGS and NGC. Our guarantee is that every item is genuine and contains the weight, fineness and purity advertised. Circulated silver shows honest wear, which changes a coin's weight slightly and its alloy not at all.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are all 1964 quarters silver?

Yes, mint errors aside. Every quarter dated 1964 that was made for circulation is 90% silver, and NGC lists it at 6.25 grams with 0.1808 troy ounce of silver. The date outlasted the year: a law of September 3, 1964 kept that date on coins struck afterward, and the Mint's timeline puts the first clad quarters, the first coins dated 1965, at August 23, 1965.

Is 925 silver 100% silver?

No. A 925 mark means 925 parts silver in 1,000, or 92.5%, which is sterling. The FTC's Jewelry Guides allow the word "sterling" only on silver that's at least 925/1,000ths pure, and the National Stamping Act permits a divergence of four parts per thousand. The Royal Society of Chemistry notes that the rest is copper or some other metal. U.S. coin silver was the lower 900 standard.

Will a silver coin stick to a magnet?

A U.S. silver coin shouldn't, because it has no steel in it, and steel is what a magnet finds. Coins that do stick have steel in them: the Royal Canadian Mint lists its dime as 92% steel from 2000 to the present. A coin that doesn't stick isn't proven silver, since copper-nickel coins don't stick either.