The silver content is easy to determine on many circulating Canadian coins, but there are a few things to look for.

Firstly, silver coins dated before 1920 are sterling (.925%) silver.

Dollars, half dollars, quarters and dimes from 1920 - 1966 are all 80% silver by weight.  The easy calculation to figure out the pure silver weight is by multiplying .6 oz per dollar of coinage.  As an example, $10 of 1966 dimes would be .6 x 10 or 6 oz's of pure silver.  Multiplying the total by today's price would give you "melt" value of the coins.

The tricky part comes with the 1967 and 1968 coins.  In 1967 the Canadian mint shifted production from 80% to 50% on some of the coins.  It is virtually impossible to test the difference as an individual.  And in 1968 they moved from 50% silver to 99% nickel, removing any silver value for the post 1968's.  However, that shift was made mid year as well and many 50% silver quarters and dimes were minted, as well as the nickel ones.  The way to test is with a magnet.  If the coins sticks, it is nickel, if not, it is silver.  At 50% the "per dollar" value of the coin use a multiplier of .375.  Using the example above $10 of 1968 dimes would be .375 x 10 or 3.75 oz's of pure silver.  Here is the coin breakdown for 1967 and 1968 Canadian silver coins:

        1967              1968

$1    80%              0%
50    80%              0%
25   50 or 80%      50 or 0%
10   50 or 80%      50 or 0%

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