Canadian Silver Coins to Look For

Coin roll hunting for silver coins can be a testing and trying experience. This is because finding these coins in circulation can be difficult. It can take many boxes just to find your first silver dime or silver quarter. Many coin roll hunters will become frustrated after searching through a few boxes of dimes without finding a silver one, and will move on to other denominations. Even worse, some may give up all together. We believe that if you are going to coin roll hunt Canadian silver coins, you have to be prepared to go through a few boxes without making any finds. Volume is the key. So which of these hard to find Canadian coins have a composition that includes silver?

Coin roll hunting is a good way to obtain silver coins

Canadian dimes (10 cents) are a popular denomination to coin roll hunt for their silver content. We have just begun coin roll hunting dime boxes and look to increase our order of these in the future. To start, any Canadian dime found between the years 1920 to 1966 are made of 80% silver. These will likely be the most common silver dimes that you come across and are worth much more than their face value. Dimes from 1968 are a little trickier. Dimes from this year will require that you weigh them since some have a composition of 50% silver (the remaining 50% is copper). Other 1968 dimes are made out of 99.9% nickel. This is why you will have to weigh these coins. That is the best way to see if your dime is silver or not. 1968 dimes that have silver in them will weigh 2.33 grams, while the nickel dimes will weigh only 2.07 grams. Lastly, dimes from 1858 until 1919 had a composition of 92.5% silver. However, these dimes are extremely rare and it will be quite uncommon that you will run into any of these while coin roll hunting.

Some coin roll hunters also search through Canadian quarters (25 cents) looking for years that have a composition that includes silver. We have yet to coin roll hunt through a box of quarters but may do so in our future coin roll hunts. To start, quarters minted in the years 1967 and 1968 will have a composition of 50% silver and 50% copper. You have to be careful with the quarters from 1968 that you find, however. Some of these quarters will be 50% silver, but some will be made of 99.9% nickel. Again, to see which composition you have found you will have to weigh all 1968 quarters. 1968 quarters that have a composition that consists of 50% silver will weigh 5.83 grams. 1968 quarters that are made of 99.9% nickel will only weigh 5.05 grams. Be sure to remember this fact when coin roll hunting so you do not keep any quarters that do not contain silver. Canadian quarters minted between the years of 1920 and 1967 will have a composition that includes 80% silver. These are likely to be the most common silver quarters you find (perhaps only second to the 1968 coins). Be sure to keep all Canadian quarters you find in this date range while coin roll hunting. Lastly, Canadian quarters minted between 1908 and 1919 will have a composition that includes 92.5% silver. Again these quarters are extremely rare, but should definitely be kept if found.

Coin roll hunters cannot forget about Canadian nickels as well. Finding silver nickels are extremely rare, but are still possible to find. Canadian nickels minted in the years of 1920 and 1921 have a composition of 80% silver. Canadian nickels minted between 1858 and 1919 are made out of 92.5% silver.

This might sound confusing at first, but be sure to write these dates down before coin roll hunting and you will quickly be reminded of which Canadian coins will need to be kept for their silver content.