How Much Are These Silver Dollars Worth

We get many inquiries from our readers wondering how much their coins are worth, this particular reader has an Olympic silver coin and several Canadian silver dollar coins, let’s see what the value of his coins are.

Question / Inquiry:
Hi my name is Nate and I live in Barrie Ontario. I have 4 Canadian 1 dollar coins.  I was just wondering what they are worth. I have an Olympic silver coin of a speed skater not sure what Olympic it is from but I have had it since I was little and I am 36 now.
One of the silver dollar coins is from 1968, I also have a 1981, 1982 and 1984 how much are these silver dollars worth? Can you give me a price on them?

Answer / Reply:

Hello Nate,

Not all Canadian ‘silver dollars’ contain silver, you see that stopped making dollar coins with silver half way through 1968 so about 1/2 of the 1968 Canadian dollar coins contain silver and half do not.  If you have a 1968 dollar coin that contains silver we would pay $7.25 for it.  The easiest way to tell if it is a dollar coin that contain silver is to see if it is attracted to a magnet.  If it sticks to a magnet than it does not contain silver and it is not something we would purchase.

As for the 1981, 1982 and 1984 dollar coins, unless they are proof or collector sets in a sealed solid plastic case we would not purchase them as they do not contain silver.  If they are in a sealed plastic case and are not attracted to a magnet they are 40% silver and we would pay $3.45 each.  If they are loose and attracted to a magnet we would not purchase them.  You can find a lot more information on Canadian silver dollar values on this post.

Regarding the silver Olympic coin, you mentioned that is has a Speed Skater on the front, if that is the case it is likely from the 1988 Calgary Olympics and is the $20 Speed Skater coin.  That particular coin is composed of sterling silver or .925 silver and weighs 33.63 grams.  We would pay $21.85 for that coin, unfortunately there were 354,222 of those coins minted so it doesn’t have a lot of value outside of it’s silver content.  For your reference that coins was designed by Frederich Peter and most were produced in 1985 before the Olympic began.  If you are interested in Olympic coins you can find more information on 1976 Montreal Olympics coins here.