GOLD$4,140.80▼ 0.89%SILVER$60.40▼ 0.97%
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Grace Whitfield

Grace Whitfield follows U.S. Mint releases and new issues for FMV Gold.

Latest from Grace Whitfield

Are Capped Bust Half Dollars a Good Investment?
Silver Coins

Are Capped Bust Half Dollars a Good Investment?

Most American coins earned their wear in pockets and cash drawers. The capped bust half dollar earned its wear in canvas bags, shuffled from one bank vault to another and counted by weight as often as by piece. That single fact explains nearly everything a buyer needs to know about the series: why so many […]
Are Silver Maple Leafs a Good Investment? A Buyer’s Profile
Silver Coins

Are Silver Maple Leafs a Good Investment? A Buyer’s Profile

Canada’s Silver Maple Leaf had a quiet debut. The Royal Canadian Mint struck a little over a million of them in 1988, a modest run for a coin that would end up second only to the American Silver Eagle among the world’s silver bullion issues. Silver was cheap that year, retail interest was thin, and […]
Are Trade Dollars a Good Investment? A Buyer’s Profile
Silver Coins

Are Trade Dollars a Good Investment? A Buyer’s Profile

One coin in the American series was actually disowned by the government that made it. In the summer of 1876 Congress stripped the trade dollar of its legal tender status and left it circulating anyway: a silver dollar from the U.S. Mint that the Treasury would no longer take at face value. It stayed in […]
Are Barber Dimes a Good Investment? A Buyer’s Profile
Silver Coins

Are Barber Dimes a Good Investment? A Buyer’s Profile

Pull a Barber dime out of an old accumulation and the first thing you notice is what is missing. The word LIBERTY, which Charles Barber tucked onto a narrow band across Liberty’s brow, is usually rubbed flat. Thirty or forty years in cash drawers and coat pockets did that. It is also the single detail […]
What Are 40% Silver Half Dollars? A Buyer’s Guide
Silver Coins

What Are 40% Silver Half Dollars? A Buyer’s Guide

Sort through a coffee can of old half dollars and you may be holding three different coins wearing the same face. The 1964 Kennedy is 90 percent silver. Anything dated 1971 or later is copper and nickel with no silver in it at all. Between those two sits a six year run that gets overlooked […]
Are Franklin Half Dollars a Good Investment?
Silver Coins

Are Franklin Half Dollars a Good Investment?

Half dollars stopped being pocket change a long time ago, so when one turns up in a coffee can of old coins it gets a second look. If it shows Benjamin Franklin on the front and the Liberty Bell on the back, it is ninety percent silver and it left a mint between 1948 and […]
Are Standing Liberty Quarters a Good Investment?
Silver Coins

Are Standing Liberty Quarters a Good Investment?

Reach into a bag of 90 percent junk silver and sooner or later you will pull out a quarter with a striding figure on one side, an eagle in flight on the other, and a smooth blank step where the date ought to be. Dealers sort those into their own pile without much comment. The […]
Are Walking Liberty Half Dollars a Good Investment?
Silver Coins

Are Walking Liberty Half Dollars a Good Investment?

Ask a longtime coin dealer to name the most beautiful silver coin the United States ever put into circulation, and a good many will reach for the Walking Liberty half dollar before you finish the question. Struck from 1916 through 1947, it carries Adolph A. Weinman’s striding Liberty on the obverse and a mountaintop eagle […]
Are Mercury Dimes a Good Investment? A Buyer’s Profile
Silver Coins

Are Mercury Dimes a Good Investment? A Buyer’s Profile

Pull a tray of Mercury dimes across a coin show table and something happens: people who never look twice at a modern quarter slow down. The little silver dime with the winged head is one of the most admired designs the United States ever put into pocket change, and it circulated by the billions from […]
What Is Junk Silver? A Buyer’s Guide to 90% Coins
Silver Coins

What Is Junk Silver? A Buyer’s Guide to 90% Coins

Walk into any coin shop and ask about the cheapest way to start owning physical silver, and sooner or later someone will slide a bag of worn dimes and quarters across the counter and call it junk. The name is a bad joke. There is nothing junky about it. It just means old United States […]