Hi, ho … Silver! Collection dump … with a story!
While some of you may have read my earlier post asking about what caused the dark line on a 50 cent coin recently, what I didn’t say is that it came with 61 little friends!!!! 62 in total purchased for face value from two branches of my bank, on the same day.
Because one of my branches keeps any banknotes or coins that come their way, and I have gotten the odd 50 cent coin from them, I thought every branch did it. So, on my note hunt one day I asked at every branch if they had any King Charles, colourized, 50 cent, foreign, or just any coins that look “odd”?
And, they all said “No” … at first! At one strangely little lucky branch where I always find something, when the manager heard me ask for 50 cent coins, and the teller say no, he piped up to say that were some coins in the backroom in one of the drawers. Yada, yada …
So, as I watched the teller dump an envelope of mostly silver 50 cent coins on the counter, I desperately had to keep my ‘poker face’ on, hiding my excitement while I sorted the money to pay the woman and head for the hills feeling like a bandit.
The breakdown from both banks (44 and 18) is a total of 62 coins:
37 coins dated 1956 – 1966 (80/20% silver/copper),
17 coins dated 1969 – 1978 (99.9% nickel), and
8 commemorative coins dated 2002 (93.15/4.75/2.1% steel/copper/nickel plated)
I’m not an active collector of coins, other than rolls of new issues, so I did not know any of the following about the gradual retraction from circulation and minting of our 50 cent coin as follows:
A.I. generated: “The Royal Canadian Mint ceased the production of the 50 cent coin for circulation in 1979 due to declining demand. However, they continued to produce it for collectors in limited quantities. Then, in 2000, they officially announced that the 50 cent coin would no longer be produced for circulation at all. Instead, it would only be available directly from the Mint or through financial institutions in special sets or rolls for collectors and numismatists.”
Also, 70% of the silver coins I got from the bank have the same black/dark line across them, so I took a few to a coin dealer I know and they told me the marks are “oxidation” and “glue” from some sort of tape used to hold them into a collection book. They also offered to buy them for silver content, but I’m not done “playing” with them yet. I have found several known errors on a few, and I’m learning lots. The question is melt or clean?
Cheers,
Breanna
