Sometimes the good stuff is right under your nose and you don’t even know it. U.S. clad coinage beginning in 1965 is just what I’m talking about. The United States ceased using silver composition coins for circulation, with the exception of the half dollar, beginning in 1965. It made good sense at the time. The price of silver was rising rapidly and the silver content of our coins had exceeded the face value.

Why would anyone want to spend such a coin when it was worth more just to melt it?

Once silver coins began to be withdrawn from circulation, collectors began scrambling. Not only did they search for the older dates still to be found in their pockets, but also for the more recent issues of the early 1960s before all the Uncirculated examples were gone.

Today, there are still a significant number of Uncirculated grade silver dimes, quarters and half dollars from the 1960s that are available for this reason.

Collectors and hoarders collectively turned their noses up at the clad copper-nickel composition coins that began to appear in circulation. Half dollars dated between 1965 and 1969 were still being put aside because the coins contain some silver. Dimes and quarters were ignored, as were the half dollars beginning in 1970.

Don’t get me wrong. There were plenty of coins with these dates from which to choose, but we are talking about grade rarity here, not date and Mint mark rarity regardless of condition.

Like so many other obvious things that are never put aside in quantities, here we are in 2000, more than three decades after the first clad copper-nickel coins were struck, and people are just now starting to realize that the majority of the Mint State dimes, quarters and half dollars from 1965 forward are to be found in Mint sets rather than in hoards, collections and commerce.

Slowly, attitudes are changing as coins of these later dates are now graded and encapsulated more often than before by third party grading and certification services.

Look at the advertising for relatively new clad coins, particularly the Statehood quarter coins beginning in 1999, and you will see premium values already being asked for particularly nice specimens.

Now that there are more than 35 years worth of clad non-precious metal coinage to be collected, people are beginning to wake up to the fact these coins are collectible.

In addition, considering clad coinage has been with us for more than three and a half decades, we now have a generation of collectors who have never seen silver coins in general circulation. The entry level for most of these collectors will be the clad coins in their pocket change. Logically, they will graduate to Mint State examples of these coins to enhance and complete their collections before they consider moving on to the more costly silver coins of 1964 and earlier.

Think about it. Thirty-five years worth of denominations, dates, Mint marks and a few major varieties is quite a lot for anyone to assemble into a collection. And it's not going to go away. Each year there will be more to add to keep a collection complete.

There are no great classic rarities in the dime, quarter and half dollar series from 1965 to today--yet. Give it time. There will be.

There is actually very little difference between post-1964 and pre-1965 U.S. coins, except the idea that there is silver in the earlier coins. From a practical standpoint, the clad coins are available from circulation, while the typical collector will have no choice but to collect silver composition coins by buying them. This isn’t such a glamorous scenario for the beginning collector. Not only that, but everybody likes to "get something for nothing"--in other words get something at face value that will hopefully have a premium value later.

So, when does this revolution in clad coinage collecting begin? It already has. Look at the interest in the Statehood quarters. Check with children and young adults to see where their collections begin. I don’t think you’ll find them actively looking to complete their Washington quarter set from 1932 to 1964, as quickly as they search to complete their 1965 to date set. Not only that, there are now coin boards with appropriate date slots to accommodate collecting clad dated coins of any denomination you like exclusively.

Will you get rich off your high grade clad coinage collection? If I had a crystal ball to predict such things I wouldn’t be spending my time writing this. Only the future will tell.

Clad coinage is here to stay. So are the collectors who will seek them.