Collecting Silver Certificates

According to the many emails I receive, it seems that every household in America has at least one silver certificate tucked away somewhere in an old book, a drawer or a safety deposit box. Unfortunately the perception is that a silver certificate is worth a great deal of money. Not necessarily so! But like anything, there are some silver certificates that bring high dollars.

Higher values in silver certificates can occur especially in some of the early notes, i.e., the 1928 and 1934 Star notes.

The small size one dollar silver certificate was printed from 1928 to 1963.

Specific types are:

·        1928, 1928A, 1928B, 1928C, 1928D, 1928E

·        1934, 1935, 1935A (blue seal), 1935A (red “R” & red “S” experimental) 1935B ,
      1935C, 1935D, 1935E, 1935F, 1935G, 1935H

·        1957, 1957A and 1957B series notes

These notes were used until the Secretary of the Treasury halted redemption of all United States silver certificates in March of 1964 for silver dollars yet they are still legal tender.

Later on June 28, 1968 all redemption for silver bullion was halted.

Many collections begin with just one silver certificate. With all of the aforementioned series notes there are many varieties to be collected.

An excellent reference book on small size currency is the “Standard Guide to Small Size U.S. Paper Money 1928 to Date” by John Schwartz and Scott Lindquist published by Krause Publications. Another excellent resource on all types of U.S. currency is the “Comprehensive Catalog of U.S. Paper Money” by Gene Hessler and Carlson Chambliss, BNR Press Publications.

If there’s any advice that I can give you it would be to buy a book first before beginning a collection. And read it! This lets you narrow down a particular interest and one that will match your budget.

There are several good web sites that have price guides for U.S. paper money and coins. One in particular for coins is www.pcgs.com and the good part about the site is that it’s FREE!

I hope that once you have visited the site, you’ll return to www.rrcoins.net (bookmark us now) to gain more knowledge and to check our inventory which changes frequently.

So take out your silver certificates, check them carefully and search around to see just what you have. Remember that the price for silver certificates start around $1.40 in circulated condition and go up into the hundreds of dollars, or even thousands of dollars in higher grades and scarce quantities!