MEASURED · 15 OCTOBER 2026

How much is a silver certificate worth? The silver behind 1935 and 1957 dollar bills

A $1 silver certificate is still legal tender for $1, and circulated 1935 and 1957 notes are generally worth less than $5 to collectors, according to CoinWeek. Until March 1964 the same note could be swapped at the Treasury for a silver dollar, which now holds $47.07 of silver. Below: what the silver behind a $1, $5 and $10 note is worth, how to tell a silver certificate, why redemption in silver ended in 1968, and what the silver was worth every year since 1960.

The short answer

Silver at the London (LBMA) price of $60.865 an ounce on 29 September 2026; at the September 2026 average of $64.60 the $1 figure is $49.96. At the record London fix, $118.45 on 29 January 2026, it was $91.61 for a $1 note and $916.09 for a $10. Collector values are CoinWeek’s, from its guide to silver certificates; we did not measure them.

What a silver certificate promised

A silver certificate was paper money backed by silver held in the Treasury. The Series 1928 $1 note certified that one silver dollar had been deposited in the Treasury, “payable to the bearer on demand”, according to Wikipedia. Until March 1964 that meant exactly what it said: take a $1 note to the Treasury and get a silver dollar for it. A silver dollar holds 0.7734 troy ounces of silver, so that is how this page values every dollar of certificates: $47.07 at the 29 September 2026 London price, about 47.1 times the face. It is the same silver as in a Morgan or Peace dollar, priced in how much is a silver dollar worth?

The notes the size of today’s bills were issued from 1928 and only regularly in three denominations: $1 (Series 1928, 1934, 1935 and 1957), $5 (Series 1934 and 1953) and $10 (Series 1933, 1934 and 1953). The $1 notes people look up most are Series 1935, which runs through suffix letters such as 1935A and 1935G, and Series 1957, 1957A and 1957B, all with George Washington on the front.

How to tell a silver certificate

• Look at the seal. A silver certificate usually has a blue Treasury seal and blue serial numbers. Federal Reserve Notes, the bills in your wallet today, have green ones, and United States Notes red ones. The wartime exceptions are below.
• Read the wording. The note is headed silver certificate and promises its value in silver “payable to the bearer on demand”.
• Check the series. The series year is printed on the front: 1928, 1934, 1935 or 1957 for a $1, with a letter after it on many notes.
• Wartime notes are different colours. Series 1935A notes issued in Hawaii from July 1942 to October 1944 have a brown seal and HAWAII printed on both sides, according to CoinWeek. Notes issued in 1942 for US forces in North Africa have a bright yellow seal. Both could be declared worthless if Hawaii were invaded or the US lost its position in North Africa or Europe, according to Wikipedia.
• A star before the serial number marks a star note, a replacement printed for a faulty one, according to Wikipedia.

Why you can’t get the silver any more

The government had fixed silver at $1.2929 an ounce: the price at which the silver in a silver dollar is worth exactly $1, according to Coin World. The lines at Treasury cash windows grew longer each day, Coin World reports, and on 21 March 1964 the Treasury said a million silver dollars were leaving its vaults every day, with two weeks’ supply left. Five days later Treasury Secretary C. Douglas Dillon stopped paying out silver dollars.

For the next four years the notes could still be exchanged for silver: small amounts in envelopes of silver granules and large ones in bars, at the Assay Offices in New York and San Francisco. In June 1967 Congress gave holders one last year, from 24 June 1967. Redemption in silver ended in June 1968, on the 24th according to Wikipedia and the 28th according to Coin World. Since then a silver certificate can be exchanged only for other US currency, at face value.

The 53 months silver stood still

The fixed price shows in the data. The World Bank’s monthly silver average, which it rounds to the nearest 10 cents, read $1.30 in every one of the 53 months from February 1963 to June 1967. In July 1967 it jumped to $1.60, and the silver in a silver dollar was worth $1.24, more than its face.

The London fixes in the LBMA series begin on 2 January 1968, at $2.173 an ounce: the silver dollar a note once bought held $1.68 of silver. On 24 June 1968, the last day of redemption in Wikipedia’s account, the fix was $2.483, and a silver dollar’s silver was worth $1.92. We do not know how much silver the Treasury paid out per dollar in granules, so these figures value each dollar as the silver dollar it bought until 1964.

What the silver behind a certificate was worth, 1960 to today

Each December’s World Bank average; the last row is September 2026. The silver in 0.7734 troy ounces per dollar of face. The World Bank rounds to 10 cents, so 1963 and 1964 read $1.01 for a $1 note; at the fixed $1.2929 it was exactly $1. Year-by-year silver prices are in silver price history.

The note against the silver it promised

Measured by US consumer prices, a dollar of 1935 bought what $24.41 buys in August 2026, a dollar of 1957 $11.92 and a dollar of 1964 $10.80. The note itself still buys $1 of goods, so it has lost most of its spending power. The silver dollar it could be swapped for until March 1964 has beaten prices: its silver is worth $47.07 now, against the $10.80 that a dollar of 1964 is worth in today’s money. Someone who swapped a note for a silver dollar in early 1964 and kept the coin holds about 47.1 times what the note is worth as money.

For a note you have now there are three choices. Spend it or bank it for its face. Sell it to a collector or dealer: CoinWeek puts most circulated 1935 and 1957 $1 notes under $5, and as much as a couple of hundred dollars in high grades. Or keep it. A grading service’s price guide, such as PCGS, lists collector values; we did not measure them.

The silver coins that people did get for their notes are priced in how much is a silver dollar worth?, how much is a half dollar worth?, how much is a silver quarter worth? and how much is a dime worth?, and the modern dollar coins in how much is a dollar coin worth? This page is a measurement, not a forecast or personal advice.

How we measured it

Prices: the LBMA silver price, 2 January 1968 to 29 September 2026; World Bank Pink Sheet monthly silver averages, December 1960 to September 2026; BLS CPI-U to August 2026, with the 1935 and 1957 annual averages from the FRED series CPIAUCNS. Silver per dollar: 0.7734 troy ounces, the silver in one silver dollar (NGC’s melt-value figure, as on our silver dollar page); $5 and $10 notes are five and ten times that. History: the series, seals, the 1964 halt, the granules and the end of redemption are from Wikipedia and Coin World; collector values from CoinWeek. Today’s money: each year’s average CPI-U against August 2026.

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