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In fact, up till 1964 ALL dimes, quarters, halves and dollars were made of 90% silver. In the past every coin except pennies and nickels was supposed to contain its own value in precious metals, either gold or silver. The prices of those metals were controlled by the government so a fixed amount of silver (till 1964) and gold (till 1933) was needed to ensure that a each coin contained its face value. For example, a dime contained 2.25 gm of silver which was worth 10 cents at that time.

Eventually the demand for gold and silver in industry and elsewhere became so high that the government had to start selling its reserves and let the price be determined by the market. That meant that a silver coin's value could change radically as market prices changed. In fact, at one point its price reached nearly $50/oz so people would melt silver coins and sell them for much more than their face value. The government clearly couldn't keep minting dimes at 10 cents each that people could melt for over $4.00 each, so they started making coins from copper-nickel instead.

Today the price of silver has dropped from those ridiculous highs but is still far more than it was in 1964. US silver coins dated 1964 and earlier are currenly (2010) worth at least 10 times face value, depending on the current price of silver.

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15y ago

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