Silver quarters and dimes: how to spot 90% silver

Coins · 9 September 2026

Until 1964 an American dime, quarter or half dollar was struck in an alloy of nine parts silver to one part copper. From 1965 the same coins were made of copper-nickel bonded to a copper core. Both kinds still circulate, look similar at a glance and are worth completely different amounts – which is why sorting change is a habit worth keeping.

The date does most of the work

The Coinage Act of 1965 ended silver in circulating dimes and quarters. The rule is short:

• Dimes and quarters dated 1964 or earlier – 90% silver.
• Dimes and quarters dated 1965 or later – copper-nickel clad, no silver.
• Half dollars 1965–1970 – a middle case, 40% silver.
• Half dollars 1971 onwards – clad, no silver.

That single line covers almost every coin in a jar. The remaining checks exist because dates get worn, and because worn coins are exactly the ones people stop looking at.

Look at the edge

Stand the coins on edge in a stack, or simply look at the rim from the side. A clad coin is a sandwich, so a copper stripe runs along its edge between two pale layers. A silver coin shows one continuous pale grey line with no stripe. On a stack of change the difference is visible instantly – a coin's edge carries more information than most people expect, as the guide to coin edges explains.

Weigh it if the date is gone

Silver is denser than the clad sandwich, so the two differ by a fixed amount. A kitchen scale reading to a tenth of a gram is enough:

• Dime – 2.50 g silver against 2.27 g clad.
• Quarter – 6.25 g silver against 5.67 g clad.
• Half dollar – 12.50 g silver, 11.50 g for the 40% silver years, 11.34 g clad.

Worn coins weigh slightly less than new ones, but never enough to cross the gap. A coin that is far outside these figures in either direction is not a worn coin – it is not the coin it claims to be, which is the reasoning behind the guide to originals and copies.

The nickels nobody checks

Five-cent pieces are copper-nickel and contain no silver – with one exception. From late 1942 to 1945 nickel metal went to the war and the five-cent piece was struck in an alloy containing 35% silver. These are identified not by weight, which is unchanged, but by a large mint letter P, D or S placed above the dome of Monticello on the reverse. That was the first time Philadelphia marked its coins at all, which is why the letter is so prominent – the wider logic of mint letters is covered in the guide to mint marks.

Common date silver is metal, not rarity

Worn, ordinary-date silver coins are traded as bullion by weight, under the trade name "junk silver" – junk meaning "no collector premium", not "damaged". Their price follows the silver market and changes daily, so any figure printed in an article is stale on arrival. What does carry a collector premium is a scarce date, a scarce mint, or a coin with genuinely original surfaces.

Which is the reason not to clean any of it. A polished silver coin loses the surface that grading is based on and joins the bullion pile permanently – see cleaning old coins and coin condition. Store the sorted coins in envelopes or inert holders rather than loose, following the guide to storing coins and metal.

Where to compare

The open archive holds 128 museum coins from Smithsonian and other open collections, including American silver from 1794 onwards, and 855 Soviet coins whose silver issues make the same point about density and edge. Both are photographed from both sides at high resolution, which is what a comparison needs.

Open the sections: museum coins, world stamps.