The short answer, then every step of the math — the per-coin table, the derivation, why any mix of coins gives you the same answer, and what that silver is worth today.
0.715 troy ounces. That's the practical, market-standard figure for $1 face value of pre-1965 U.S. 90% silver dimes, quarters, or half dollars — in any combination.
The exact mint specification for freshly struck coins is 0.7234 troy ounces per $1 face. The market rounds down to 0.715 to account for roughly a century of circulation wear on the coins actually in dealers' hands (see below for why).
As of mid-2026, with silver trading around $62/oz, $1 face value of pre-1965 silver coins is worth approximately $44. See the shareable card for the one-line version of this fact.
Every pre-1965 U.S. silver coin was struck to a fixed weight and fineness. Here is the complete reference, straight from U.S. Mint specifications:
| Coin | Gross weight | Fineness | Silver content |
|---|---|---|---|
| 90% dime (≤1964) | 2.50 g | .900 | 0.0723 ozt |
| 90% quarter (≤1964) | 6.25 g | .900 | 0.1808 ozt |
| 90% half dollar (≤1964) | 12.50 g | .900 | 0.3617 ozt |
| Morgan / Peace dollar | 26.73 g | .900 | 0.7734 ozt |
| 40% half dollar (1965–70) | 11.50 g | .400 | 0.1479 ozt |
| War nickel (1942–45) | 5.00 g | .350 | 0.0563 ozt |
Take the most common case: ten pre-1965 dimes, which add up to $1 face value.
That's the exact figure for freshly minted coins: 0.7234 troy ounces per $1 face value. Run the same three steps on four quarters (4 × 6.25 g = 25 g) or two halves (2 × 12.50 g = 25 g) and you land on the identical 25 g of gross coin weight, and therefore the identical 0.7234 ozt of fine silver. That's not a coincidence — see the next section.
This is the elegant part, and it wasn't an accident. Under a silver standard, the coin was the money — not a promise to pay money, not a token representing money, but the actual valuable metal, struck into a convenient, verifiable, government-guaranteed shape. The Mint set the silver content of every denomination to scale exactly with its face value: a dime is worth one-tenth of a dollar because it contains one-tenth of a dollar's worth of silver (at the mint price the standard was built around), a quarter one-fourth, a half one-half.
The practical consequence: any combination of pre-1965 dimes, quarters, and half dollars that adds up to $1 face value contains the same silver content, because silver content is proportional to face value by design across those three denominations. Ten dimes, four quarters, two halves, or any jumbled mix of all three that sums to a dollar — it's always 0.7234 ozt fresh from the mint, or 0.715 ozt by the circulated-coin convention. A junk-silver dealer sorting a coffee can of mixed dimes and quarters doesn't need to separate them by denomination to know what they're worth; the face value alone tells the story.
That design is worth sitting with. It's the mechanical opposite of a fiat currency, where the government simply decrees a number has value. Under the pre-1965 system, the government's role was narrower and more verifiable: certify the weight and purity, and let the metal carry the value. Read more on how that system worked, and how it ended, at the Sound Money Calculator.
As of mid-2026, with silver trading around $62 per troy ounce:
| Quantity | Silver content | Value (mid-2026) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 dime | 0.0723 ozt | ≈ $4.48 |
| 1 quarter | 0.1808 ozt | ≈ $11.21 |
| 1 half dollar | 0.3617 ozt | ≈ $22.43 |
| $1 face (circulated, 0.715 convention) | 0.715 ozt | ≈ $44.33 |
| $5 face | 3.575 ozt | ≈ $221.65 |
| $100 face bag | 71.5 ozt | ≈ $4,433 |
The formula behind every row in that table is the same one from above: face value × 0.715 × spot price. Swap in whatever spot price silver is trading at when you're reading this, and the table updates itself.
Three cases don't follow the 0.715-per-dollar rule, and it's worth knowing all three before you do this math on a mixed collection:
Morgan and Peace dollars contain 0.7734 troy ounces per $1 face — noticeably more than the 0.7234–0.715 figure that applies to dimes, quarters, and halves. A $1 face value in silver dollars is worth more in melt than a $1 face value in dimes. Don't average a silver dollar into a face-value calculation alongside smaller coins without accounting for this.
After the Coinage Act of 1965 eliminated silver from dimes and quarters, half dollars kept a reduced 40% silver content through 1970 as a transitional compromise. At 0.1479 ozt per coin, two of these add up to $1 face but contain only 0.2958 ozt — well under half of what two 90% halves would contain.
Wartime five-cent pieces temporarily swapped their usual copper-nickel composition for 35% silver (freeing up nickel for the war effort), at 0.0563 ozt per coin. Nickels were never part of the 90% silver-standard family, so they don't fit the face-value formula above — they're valued coin by coin.