coin guide

What Is Junk Silver?

Junk silver is the trade's name for circulated U.S. coins bought for their metal: mainly dimes, quarters and half dollars dated 1964 or earlier, which are 90% silver. "Junk" means the coins carry no collector premium, not that they're damaged or fake. Under the weights Congress fixed in 1873, every $1 of face value in those coins holds 0.7234 troy ounce of silver when unworn.

What "Junk" Means in the Coin Trade

"Junk" is a pricing term, not a grade. A coin sold as junk silver trades on what the PCGS glossary calls melt, slang for the intrinsic value of a numismatic item. Its date and mint mark add nothing to the price, because the coin is common and worn enough that no collector pays extra for it.

The name stops applying when a coin has collector demand. NGC prints one caution with its melt figures: a coin's numismatic or collector value may be higher than its melt value. Numismatic means collectible. PCGS uses "junk" the same way for coins with no silver in them, noting that the 1912-D Liberty Head nickel is seldom encountered in "junk" boxes because even heavily worn examples carry a premium. Scarce dates get pulled from a lot and priced one at a time.

You'll also see the same coins sold as constitutional silver or simply as 90% silver. All three names describe one product.

Which Coins Count as Junk Silver

Three alloys go by the name. Most of what trades is silver dimes, silver quarters and silver half dollars in the pre-1965 alloy. That covers Barber, Mercury and Roosevelt dimes, Barber, Standing Liberty and Washington quarters, and Barber, Walking Liberty, Franklin and 1964 Kennedy half dollars. NGC's table of silver content lists Kennedy half dollars dated 1965 to 1970 at 40% silver and wartime Jefferson nickels at 35%. The table below gives NGC's figures for full-weight coins, and its last column works out the silver in $1 of face value.

Morgan and Peace silver dollars are 90% silver as well, and NGC lists them at 26.73 grams with 0.7734 troy ounce of silver. One of them holds more silver than $1 of the smaller coins, so dollars can't be counted into a face-value lot. Dollars too worn or damaged for collectors sell as culls, the PCGS term for a coin that is basically non-collectible because of its condition.

How Face Value Became the Unit of Count

The trade quotes 90% coins by face value: "$1 face," "$10 face," "$100 face." The unit works because the law tied weight to denomination. The Coinage Act of 1873 set the half dollar at 12.5 grams and made the quarter one-half and the dime one-fifth of that weight. A dollar's worth weighs the same in any mix of the three.

One dollar of face value is 10 dimes, four quarters or two half dollars, and each combination weighs 25 grams. Nine-tenths of that weight is silver, which is 22.5 grams. A troy ounce is 31.1035 grams, so 22.5 grams comes to 0.7234 troy ounce. For any lot of unworn 90% coins, multiply the face value by 0.7234.

Sellers package lots the way they count them, by face value, in rolls, tubes and bags. A roll once meant a paper wrapper, and PCGS notes that coins today are more likely to be slid into a plastic coin tube.

Why 40% Half Dollars and War Nickels Are Quoted Separately

A face-value quote only means something within one alloy. The Coinage Act of 1965 made the half dollar a silver-clad coin of 11.5 grams containing 4.6 grams of silver. Two of them make $1, so $1 of face value in Kennedy half dollars dated 1965 to 1970 holds 9.2 grams of silver, or 0.2958 troy ounce, against 22.5 grams for 90% coins. The PCGS glossary records the trade's shorthand: a "clad bag" usually means a $1,000 bag of 40% silver half dollars.

War nickels run the other way. NGC lists each at 5 grams with 0.0563 troy ounce of silver, in an alloy of 56% copper, 35% silver and 9% manganese. Twenty make $1, so $1 of face value holds 1.126 troy ounces (20 times 0.0563), more than the same face value in 90% coins.

Only Jefferson nickels with the large mint mark above Monticello's dome are the silver alloy. The U.S. Mint moved the mark there to indicate the new metal composition. In law the wartime nickels were never silver coins: the Second War Powers Act of 1942 said they shall be deemed to be minor coins. Compare offers by the troy ounce of silver, since a price per dollar of face value can't be compared across the three types.

How Wear Changes the Silver in a Lot

The 0.7234 figure is for coins at legal weight, and these coins have circulated. Wear removes metal. Treasury regulations define uncurrent coins as whole coins that are merely worn or reduced in weight by natural abrasion, a description that fits a well-used Mercury dime.

A scale gives the real number. Sort the lot by alloy, weigh the 90% coins together in grams, multiply by 0.900, then divide by 31.1035, the number of grams in a troy ounce. Suppose $10 of face value in worn Roosevelt dimes weighs 244 grams, down from 250 grams new. Its silver is 244 times 0.900, or 219.6 grams, which comes to 7.06 troy ounces where the full-weight figure is 7.234. Use 0.400 for 40% Kennedy half dollars and 0.350 for war nickels.

How Junk Silver Is Priced

Multiply the troy ounces of silver in a lot by the spot price, the current market price of an ounce of silver, and the result is its melt value. For unworn 90% coins that's face value times 0.7234 times spot. Our silver price chart shows where spot stands.

What you're quoted is melt value plus or minus a premium, the amount charged over or under spot. PCGS defines a bullion coin as a legal tender coin that trades at a slight premium to its melt value, and common-date silver coins now trade the same way, on their metal, though the U.S. Mint struck them to be spent. The premium moves with supply and demand for the coins themselves, so it can change on a day when silver doesn't.

Why the Coinage Act of 1965 Created the Supply

These coins exist as a pool of metal because of one law. The Coinage Act of 1965 took silver out of the dime and quarter and cut it by more than half in the half dollar. When he signed it on July 23, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson said more than 12 billion silver dimes, quarters and half dollars were outstanding, with another billion to come before production stopped.

In the same remarks Johnson said saving the coins wouldn't pay: "There will be no profit in holding them out of circulation for the value of their silver content." People saved them anyway. NGC's summary is that most of these coins have been plucked from circulation. The U.S. Mint dates the end of circulating silver to 1971, when it removed silver from the half dollar.

The same law made the date a dependable test. It required every 90% silver coin struck after enactment to be dated 1964 and barred clad coins from carrying any date before 1965, so in regular production no year has both.

The Treasury prohibited melting silver coins from 1967 to 1969, and the federal rule in force today covers only one-cent and 5-cent coins, with war nickels exempted by name.

How to Check a Lot by Date, Edge and Weight

Start with the date: 1964 or earlier for dimes, quarters and half dollars in the old alloy, and 1965 to 1970 for silver-clad Kennedy halves. Then look at the edge. Johnson gave the test himself when he described the clad dime and quarter: "They will show a copper edge." A 90% silver coin's edge is one color throughout. A 40% Kennedy half is itself clad, with outer layers of 80% silver bonded to a core that is mostly copper, so go by its date.

Weight settles a doubtful coin. The U.S. Mint's specifications put today's clad dime at 2.268 grams, the quarter at 5.67 and the half dollar at 11.34, against 2.5, 6.25 and 12.5 grams for 90% silver. A 40% half weighs 11.5 grams, 0.16 gram more than a clad one, which is too little to rely on. Nickels can't be weighed apart at all, because both alloys weigh 5 grams.

Why People Buy Junk Silver and the Trade-Offs

The appeal is practical. The units are small, since a dime holds 0.0723 troy ounce of silver. Congress fixed each coin's weight and fineness, so the date identifies the metal without an assay. The coins also remain legal tender at face value.

The trade-offs start with bulk. A tenth of every coin is copper, so $1 of face value is 25 grams of coin for 22.5 grams of silver, while the law sets an American Silver Eagle at 31.103 grams of .999 fine silver. You have to sort and weigh a circulated lot before you know its silver, which modern bullion silver coins don't ask of you. The price follows silver, which rises and falls, and a coin pays no interest or dividends.

In an IRA, the tax code treats coins as collectibles. Its exceptions cover certain named U.S. coins, such as the American Silver Eagle, and bullion that meets a minimum fineness set by futures markets. Pre-1965 dimes, quarters and half dollars aren't among the named coins. The IRS taxes net capital gains from selling collectibles, coins included, at a maximum 28% rate. Whether a broker reports a sale on Form 1099-B depends on the form and quantity of the metal, not on a dollar amount.

We're not a registered investment advisor and can't give individual investment or tax advice, so speak with a tax professional or financial advisor.

Junk Silver on Our Two-Way Market

We run a two-way market. The bid, what a seller receives, is posted beside the ask, what a buyer pays, so you can see the spread on these coins before you buy. Every item we sell is verified, and you can sell on the same platform, including coins bought elsewhere.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much junk silver equals 1 oz of silver?

At full weight, $1.38 of face value in 90% coins holds one troy ounce of silver (1 divided by 0.7234). Coins don't come in that amount, so in practice it's $1.40: 14 dimes hold 31.5 grams of silver, just over the 31.1035 grams in a troy ounce. Six quarters or three half dollars, $1.50 of face value, hold 33.75 grams. Worn coins hold slightly less.

How much silver is in $10 face value junk silver?

In 90% dimes, quarters or half dollars, $10 of face value weighs 250 grams unworn under the 1873 weight standard and holds 225 grams of silver, which is 7.234 troy ounces. That's 100 dimes, 40 quarters or 20 half dollars. The same face value holds 2.958 troy ounces in 40% Kennedy half dollars and 11.26 in war nickels, so the three are never priced together. Circulated coins come in a little under these figures.

Is junk silver worth anything?

Yes. Each coin is worth the silver in it, which is its silver content multiplied by the spot price, plus or minus the premium in the market that day. Face value is the least it can be worth, because the coins are still legal tender. A coin with a scarce date or mint mark can be worth more than its metal, so look through a lot before you sell it as junk.