A direct answer to a question that gets asked at every coin shop counter: what junk silver actually is, which coins qualify, how dealers price it, and why the name is more misleading than the metal.
Junk silver is ordinary pre-1965 U.S. dimes, quarters, and half dollars struck in 90% silver. They're bought and sold for their metal content, not for rarity or condition.
“Junk” doesn't mean low quality — it means no numismatic premium. A worn 1958 Roosevelt dime and a sharp 1958 Roosevelt dime are worth the same thing to a stacker: whatever the silver inside is worth today.
As of mid-2026, with silver trading around $62 per troy ounce, $1 of face value in pre-1965 90% silver coin is worth roughly $44 in melt value.
In the coin trade, “junk” is a technical term, not an insult. It separates two different markets for the same physical object:
Every pre-1965 dime, quarter, and half dollar started life as ordinary pocket change. Only a small fraction ever became numismatically interesting — a rare mintmark, an error, an exceptional survivor in mint condition. The overwhelming majority just circulated, wore down a little, and eventually got pulled out of circulation when the silver in them became worth more than the coin's face value. That's the pile called junk silver: everyday coins, valued for what they're made of.
The name is a dealer's shorthand, not a judgment. A bag of junk silver dimes contains exactly as much real silver as a graded, slabbed example of the same coin — the only difference is the premium a collector will pay for the story attached to the second one.
The line is drawn by the Coinage Act of 1965, which removed silver from dimes and quarters and cut half dollars to 40% silver (a transitional alloy used through 1970). Anything struck to the old 90% standard, before that changeover, is junk silver:
| Coin | Years | Fineness | Silver (troy oz) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mercury Dime | 1916–1945 | 90% Ag | 0.0723 |
| Roosevelt Dime (silver) | 1946–1964 | 90% Ag | 0.0723 |
| Washington Quarter (silver) | 1932–1964 | 90% Ag | 0.1808 |
| Franklin Half Dollar | 1948–1963 | 90% Ag | 0.3617 |
| Kennedy Half Dollar (90%) | 1964 only | 90% Ag | 0.3617 |
| Jefferson War Nickel | 1942–1945 | 35% Ag | 0.0563 |
| War nickels are sometimes lumped in with junk silver because they circulate and price the same way — but at 35% silver they're a different alloy from the 90% dimes, quarters, and halves above. | |||
| Morgan / Peace Silver Dollar | 1878–1935 | 90% Ag | 0.7734 |
| Silver dollars usually trade on their own market with a small premium above melt, not as generic junk silver — and note the silver dollar is a special case: it contains more silver per dollar of face value (0.7734 oz) than the 0.715 junk-silver rule implies, because it's a larger, heavier coin than a proportional stack of dimes or quarters. | |||
Kennedy half dollars dated 1965–1970 are only 40% silver — part of the transitional alloy Congress allowed to phase out silver gradually. They're real silver, but priced with a different formula, and dealers usually keep them separate from 90% junk silver.
Every 90% silver dime, quarter, and half dollar was minted to the same silver-per-dollar-of-face-value ratio, so the math works no matter which coins are in the mix. Freshly minted, $1 of face value contains 0.7234 troy ounces of pure silver. Because circulated coins lose a small amount of metal to wear, the market convention rounds down slightly to 0.715 troy ounces per dollar of face value — the number dealers actually quote against.
Worked example, as of mid-2026 with silver ≈ $62/oz:
$1 face × 0.715 × $62 ≈ $44.33 in melt value.
$100 face (a standard “$100 face bag”) ≈ 71.5 oz × $62 ≈ $4,433.
Junk silver is typically sold and quoted in three standard bag sizes: $1 face (a handful of coins, often used to sample a dealer), $5 face, and $100 face (roughly 71.5 troy ounces, the most common bulk unit at coin shops and online dealers). The formula scales linearly — ten dimes, four quarters, and two halves all equal the same $1 of face value and the same 0.715 ounces of silver, regardless of the mix.
A US-minted coin's composition is a matter of public record and legal specification. Nobody needs to test it to know what's inside.
Because there's no rarity or grading involved, junk silver is typically the cheapest way to buy physical silver above spot price — cheaper than rounds or bars from a mint, in many markets.
Everyone knows what a dime or a quarter is. There's no explaining a coin's authenticity or provenance the way there might be with a private mint's bar.
A single dime is a small, precise unit of silver — useful for trades or gifts where a full ounce round would be too large a denomination.
None of this is investment advice. This page describes what junk silver is and how it's historically been priced — not a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold it.
The rest of this cluster, in the order most people actually need it.