Which Quarters Are Silver? Every Date to Check

One date. That’s the entire secret to silver quarters: 1964 and earlier means 90% silver; 1965 and later means none. No exceptions in circulation, no transitional years, no fine print. It’s the cleanest cutoff in American coinage — and with silver trading at $65.56/ozt (updated Aug 11, 2026), the coins on the silver side of that line are worth roughly 45 times their face value.

Here’s every silver quarter by series, the three-second test that doesn’t even require reading the date, and the modern exceptions that trip people up.

Every silver quarter, by series

All of these are 90% silver, 10% copper, containing 0.1808 troy ounces of pure silver:

• Washington quarters, 1932–1964. The workhorse. George Washington’s profile, minted by the hundreds of millions — the overwhelming majority of silver quarters you’ll encounter. Common dates are pure junk silver; a few early keys (1932-D and 1932-S) are serious collector coins.
• Standing Liberty quarters, 1916–1930. Liberty standing in a gateway, eagle in flight on the reverse. Any Standing Liberty is silver, and dates readable enough to identify often carry a premium above melt.
• Barber quarters, 1892–1916. Charles Barber’s Liberty head design. All silver, and old enough that even worn examples interest collectors.
• Seated Liberty and earlier, pre-1892. All silver, all collectible — coins this old should be evaluated as collectibles first, silver second.

What’s a common-date example worth right now? A 1964 Washington quarter is currently melting at about $11.85 per 1964 Washington Quarter (90% Silver) (updated Aug 11, 2026) — see the live 1964 quarter value page for the number updated with today’s spot, or run a whole stack through the junk silver calculator.

The three-second edge test

You don’t even need to read dates. Turn the quarter on its side:

• Solid silver-white edge, no stripe → silver quarter.
• Copper-colored band running through the middle of the edge → clad quarter, 1965 or later.

The clad “sandwich” — copper core between nickel faces — exposes its copper filling on the edge, and silver coins have no filling to expose. This is how coin roll hunters sort hundreds of quarters in minutes: fan the roll and scan the edges for one that doesn’t show copper. The silver coin also announces itself by sound (a high, ringing chime when dropped versus the clad’s dull click) and even by look — silver quarters have a warmer white tone, and heavily worn ones wear smooth rather than showing copper at the high points.

Why 1964 is the line

Silver’s market price was climbing through the early 1960s until the metal in a quarter approached the quarter’s face value — a currency-melting crisis in slow motion. The Coinage Act of 1965 pulled silver from dimes and quarters entirely. (Half dollars got a five-year 40% silver reprieve through 1970, which is why silver Kennedys hide in half-dollar boxes to this day — a story covered in our junk silver guide.)

The Mint even struck 1964-dated quarters well into 1965 and 1966 to discourage hoarding. It didn’t work: Americans pulled silver coinage from circulation with remarkable speed, which is why finding one in change today is an event. They’re out there, though — coin jars assembled before the 1970s, inherited collections, and bank rolls remain genuinely productive hunting grounds.

The modern exceptions: silver proof quarters

Nothing silver has circulated since 1964, but since 1992 the Mint has sold silver proof sets to collectors — including 90% silver versions of the 1999–2008 State Quarters and 2010–2021 America the Beautiful quarters, upgraded to .999 fine silver in 2019. These mirror-finished coins occasionally escape into circulation when collections are spent by heirs who don’t know better. If you ever find a mirror-shiny State Quarter with an “S” mint mark, check its edge — a solid silver edge means someone just spent a collector coin worth many times face.

Also worth knowing: 1976 Bicentennial quarters (the drummer boy reverse) from circulation are clad, not silver — the most common false alarm in the hobby. Only the special 40% silver collector versions sold in Mint sets contain silver, and again, the edge tells the truth.

What to do when you find one

Check the date against the key-date lists before doing anything — a handful of dates and mint marks are worth far more to collectors than as metal, and our upcoming guide to coins worth more than melt covers the ones never to scrap. For everything else — the ordinary 1940s–1964 Washingtons that make up the vast majority of finds — the value is the silver, the silver is 0.1808 ounces, and at today’s prices that makes every one of them a small bill masquerading as pocket change. Silver dimes follow the same 1964 rule and the same edge test — here’s which dimes are silver — so once you’re sorting quarters, you may as well sort everything.