how many troy ounces of silver in a silver dollar

[OLorenzo]

Ah, the million-dollar question about the silver dollar! Asking how much silver is in a silver dollar is a bit like asking which Beatle was the best one. The answer, my friend, is: it completely depends on which one you're holding.

If you've got one of the classic gunslingers of the coin world, a Morgan or a Peace Silver Dollar, you're looking at a respectable 0.7734 troy ounces of silver. These are the coins you see in old Westerns, containing just enough precious metal to make a satisfying clink on a saloon bar.

However, if you're talking about the modern heavyweight champion, the American Silver Eagle, you get the whole shebang. That coin contains a full, beautiful troy ounce of 99.9% pure silver. It's the straightforward, no-nonsense member of the family.

Then there are the others. The silver Eisenhower "Ike" dollars, minted for collectors in the 1970s, contain a more modest 0.3161 troy ounces. And if you go way, way back to the earliest US silver dollars, they packed a slightly different punch at around 0.7773 troy ounces.

So, before you start planning your retirement based on that coin you found, you'll need to identify exactly which silver dollar you have. It's a whole family of coins, and they all have slightly different weights to throw around.