I Knew it!

Last week, its sunday night for monday garbage pick up. Around here it is cold and there isnt alot of scrap in the winter. I found a washer. So i thought that I should check this week at the same house for a dryer. BAM! there it was. KILLERhttp://www.scrapmetalforum.com/images/icons/icon10.png

Good thinking dude, way to score. I do the same thing, I know what pretty much every house on my route has thrown out in the last year and when Xp. The curse of having photographic memory.

I did the same thing when someone threw out an old suitcase, figured i could sell it swince it was the old leather kind. I got it home and it had some old civil defence booklets, dehydrated food, aluminum mess kit and some more survival (bug out) gear from the 60s. Then I spotted a roll of dimes, I was like cool $5, realised they were all silver when i opened up the roll. This was in the summer and we had pick up 2x a week, i went back by that house the following pick up day and there were 2 more suitcases, cool complete the set, one was empty the other had more survival stuff, first aid kit, more food, perscription meds from the 60s and 6 more rolls of silver dimes with 2 $50s wrapped around them. Sold the suitcases for $10 each. Always check ols suitcases, and always go back to where you got a good score.

How can you tell if the dimes are silver"?

US coins $1, $.50, $.25, $.10 made before 1964 are 90% silver, $.50 1965-1969 maybe 1970 are 40% silver, some IKE dollars have silver.
pennies made 1982 and before are copper,

Originally Posted by brandon

US coins $1, $.50, $.25, $.10 made before 1964

One slight correction, it is before 1965. The 1964 are silver also. And the 1970 halves are 40% silver. The 1970D were only made for mint sets, but I have found several in roll searching, and the 1970S were only made for proof sets, but I have found several of those also.

Don't forget the old war knickels. 32 to 35. They were made from 35% silver. Most of the 32s were regular mix, but they switched in October of that year and went through the end of 45.

All of these silver knickels have a very large mint mark over the Monticello on the reverse and usually are visible in a handful of change. They are darker and usually very "streaky" looking.
http://www.coinflation.com/coins/194...kel-Value.html

Also, there are still silver coins made to this day in the form of silver proof sets. Kids WILL raid their parents coin collection to buy candy at the corner store. I once found a beat to heck silver 90-ish proof half dollar in a circulated roll. I got scrap value for it.

Not all of the 1982 pennies are copper.

The war nickles are 42-45 The mint mark over the dome will be a large P.