Circulation where question for Tom or anyone else who may know.

Tom, I remember you said a while back that a silver coin in circulation will drop in condition from BU to VG in about 12 years. Do you know the approximate time frame for other coin conditions like XF or G?

For any Barber coin (Dime, Quarter, Half) to lose its L I B E R T Y ........ under average circulating conditions....... took just under 3-years. This implicates Uncirculated-to-VG (or G)........ is only about 3-years. Q. David Bowers talks about this in many of his writings. Silver is a VERY soft metal........ and wears rapidly. Same with Seated coins. Interestingly.........once the very intricate/fine details are worn off of a silver coin (in short order)....... that silver coin may stay (and rate) a G-4 rating/condition......... for 20-30 years more....... before dropping to an AG-3 condition. I speculate: it takes about 10-months for a Uncirculated.......to drop to F-12 condition. Then........ about 2-years to proceed from F-12 to G-4.
Copper coins (pennies & nickels)........ and all of todays clad dimes, quarters & halfs...... are VERY durable/solid/hard......... and takes decades to wear!

Wow, I knew silver was a soft metal, I guess I didn't realize how soft! Unc. to VG in 3 years is mind blowing to think about. I know silver coins did not circulate heavily for long at all after they quit being issued in early 1966. For obvious reasons of the 870+ silver coins I have found, the vast majority of high grade silvers I've found have been '60s dated...especially 1964.

The U.S. Mint was still minting dimes and quarters dated "1964"...... in 1964, 1965 & 1966.........due to excess/surplus silver bar inventory.

I often wonder if this Nation will ever go back on the silver standard. (If so......a half-dime sized silver coin.......would be our new silver dollar).

From what I've been able to ascertain, the biggest reason the government kept issuing silver coins until early 1966 was that they didn't even start clad coin production until the summer of 1965 when a coin shortage, most pronounced in several big Eastern cities, was well underway.

The government froze the date at 1964 in an effort to stop coin collectors from hoarding silver coins. An effort that had minimal effect at best. Silver hoarding was widespread at the time because the intrinsic value of silver coins was higher than the face value. The hoarding was being done in massive quantities by the general public. It really had nothing to do with coin collecting.

Also minting a massive number of silver coins from the government stockpile helped hold down spot silver prices in an effort to keep public hoarding as low as possible while the various mint facilities hustled to get clad quarters out in time for the 1965 Christmas buying season.