I've been reading alot about the us coin shortage of 1964-65 and can not find much info on it outside of Wikipedia. any resources or videos that talk about the shortage ?
The first thing you need to know was, that was when they switched from 90% silver coinage for their dimes, quarters and half dollars to clad coins (91.67% copper plated with 8.33 nickel).
The price of silver leaped up in the mid to late 1960s and every man and his dog started hoarding silver coins and they had to wait for the clad ones to arrive from the mint. The Mint new collectors maybe a problem to supplant the new coins and at the same times make the old ones last long enough for the new ones to be issued in huge numbers. Something like 1 billion dimes were issued in 1965 and close to that many quarters.
They also had no mintmarks on coins dated 1965, 66 and 67 only bringing them back in 1968. My guess is it must have worked out as this is the first I heard of it being a major issue. They wisely kept the half dollars at 40% silver content until 1970 and only in 1971 were all the circulation coins base metal (They issued silver proofs in the 1970s).
There is more information out there.
I love coins. Especially silver, gold and anything really old.
Member of the Royal Numismatic Society of New Zealand and the Auckland Numismatic Society
