Silver Wisdom: A Mother’s Day Tribute

The dimes, quarters, and half-dollars that Mom tucked into her apron when she worked as a waitress in the 1970s forever changed the way I view money. I doubt many of the truckers and travelers who plucked coins from their pockets and purses considered the silver content of the tips they left on the tables at 231 Plaza & Truck Stop. But Mom did.

As an amateur coin collector, Patricia Englert had witnessed the removal of silver from U.S. coinage in the 1960s, and she expected the value of those hoarded—and exceedingly rare—coins would increase over time. She was right.

Each night after dinner, she sat at the kitchen table, sorting through handfuls of jingly change she’d earned pouring coffee and serving roast beef sandwiches at the bustling cafe along Interstate 64 in southern Indiana. She checked the dates and mintmarks on every coin, hoping to add an uncommon copper penny or shiny Jefferson nickel to her collection, and she set aside every coin that contained silver, even if it was a duplicate.

I didn’t appreciate the value of those tarnished and worn silver coins—or my mother’s foresight—at the time. I was a typical shortsighted teenager with no grasp of history or money. I didn’t consider the price of much of anything other than a pack of Camel Light cigarettes, a full tank of gas for my money-guzzling 1968 Pontiac, or the cost of a Friday night date.

And neither Mom nor I could foresee that one day silver would be a key—though largely overlooked—component in our everyday lives, an essential element in every electronic device from cell phones and computer keyboards to flat-screen TVs and solar panels.

Today, the silver in one of those 1964 Kennedy half-dollars that Mom saved 50-some years ago is worth about $12, an almost 24-fold premium on the coin’s face value. I still have some of those old coins. They were part of my inheritance after Mom died 20 years ago next March 26, with silver hair—and wisdom—just like the coins she collected off the lunch counter at the truck stop in Dale, Indiana.