Yes, it was real, @stokjockey. I was there. Around 1970, or so, I was driving home, from college, in North Carolina. Gasoline prices, were down to $.25, from around, $.33(USD). Wow! I topped off my half-full tank, for this deal! Got home, an hour later, and it was 15.9 cents. No lie! And, 13 cents, of it, was TAX, $.03, real price, per gallon! Silver coins, at the time, were still circulating, but drying up. Then came the gasoline price war, and a shocking, unheard of, $.80 per gallon, that hit almost everyone's, pocketbook, hard. And Silver Coins vanished. But, still, it was and is, the “good-ole-days”, to a lot of us, oldsters.