The Half Dollar

One of the more unknown coins in U.S. coinage is the half dollar. This is a coin that a half century or so ago saw regular circulation alongside of dimes and quarters. In those days they were made out of silver, a 90% silver alloy to be exact. They had various designs, with the most beautiful of all time being that of the Walking Liberty, which was minted from 1916 thru 1947.

In 1948, completing the move towards placing historical figures on our coins, Benjamin Franklin's portrait started appearing on the front with the Liberty Bell appearing on back. These continued to circulate for several years, until coming to an abrupt end in the 1963-64 timeframe.

A confluence of events led to the demise of the half dollar as a circulating coin. One, the assassination of President Kennedy took place, and a decision was made to have his portrait appear on this coin beginning with the 1964 design.

Two, there were rumors that coins would no longer be made out of silver. At that time the price of silver had this semi-official fix of $1.29 per troy ounce. Some say that the silver supply started shrinking, thus placing an upward pressure on the price of silver. With escalation of military activity in southeast Asia and a social policy to win the war on poverty, more dollars needed to be printed/issued. The inflation that is guaranteed to follow with these kinds of policies would bring about a situation where the metal in the coin would be worth more than the face value of the coin itself.

Three, the Kennedy half dollars were much sought after by the public. Everyone it seemed, wanted a keepsake of the late President. From my reading, it seems as if people were lining up at the banks to buy these things and to start hoarding them.

From my conversations with a co-worker who worked as a cashier in that time frame, he told me that the half dollars disappeared overnight. You couldn't get the Franklin halves either, and coin shortages for dimes and quarters were being reported. Mintage figures for dimes and quarters show a significant ramping up in 1963, and when 1965 started the date was frozen and coins dated 1964 continued to be struck.

Congress then passed a Coinage Act removing silver from the dimes and quarters beginning with the 1965 date. "Clad" coinage then began, but silver coins were struck alongside the clad coins. I've read where 1964 dimes were minted until early 1966, which explains the high mintage figures for 1964. With the passage of this coinage act, the half dollars were minted with a "silver clad" alloy, their silver content being reduced to 40%. In 1970 Congress passed another act which removed silver from half dollars completely, and authorized the minting of the Eisenhower Dollar. At that time I was in the seventh grade, and on those occasions where I got a half dollar in my change I kept it. I was then aware that clad halves were coming out, so I didn't bother saving any of those.

Here we are a few decades later. The half dollar is still a circulating coin, in the sense that the Federal Reserve will order some for their inventories to meet the demand for them. The thing of it is, is that the last year the half was struck for circulation was 2001. I have read where the Fed believes that they won't need to order any more half dollars for use until 2050, as that existing inventories are sufficient to meet what little demand that there is for this coin.

So why am I writing about half dollars this evening?

Well, I've been a coin collector since I was a kid. I occasionally will ask for rolls of half dollars at the bank, in the hopes that I will score some silver halves or some silver clad halves. I have gotten some silver clads before but I can't remember how long it has been since I came across a 1964 half in a roll. Probably never; I did get a few when I was a paperboy, but never have I gotten a 1964 half in my change.

As for the last time I got a half dollar in my change, I'm going to say it was in 2002 and it was from the coin shop on Speedway in midtown Tucson. Coin shops will hand out half dollars in change in an effort to spur further interest in coin collecting. Aside from the coin shop, the time before that was at a movie theater in 1993. My then wife and I had gone out to see a movie at a theater in Capitola and the fifty cents change that came my way was in the form of a half dollar.

These days if you want to get some half dollars, you have to ask for them at the bank. As I've stated, I do this occasionally, and this morning there was one of these occasions. I bought two rolls of halves, face value $20 for the two rolls. In addition, I picked up another $11 worth that were loose from another teller.

I didn't score any silver this time, or any silver clads. But I did score some keepers. There were six of them: a 2002P, two 2002D, two 2007P and one 2007D. There have been half dollars minted every year since 2001, but they haven't been minted for circulation. What the Mint does with these is that they include them in mint sets, and they also sell these in bags and rolls to collectors who are willing to pay the premium to get them. Mintage of the 2007 halves were 2.4 million for both Philadelphia and Denver; thus I scored some low mintage halves that are worth more than face to a collector such as myself.

I will be keeping one each of the 2002P/D and 2007P/D halves. This leaves me with a surplus of two halves. I haven't done the eBay thing in a long time, but I do participate in a forum for coin collectors, and I plan on putting these up for auction.

As for the remaining halves that aren't keepers, well I've got a bunch of them. Some $28 worth.

I plan on ditching these at convenience stores and in the company cafeteria. The cashier working the express lane at Safeway is also going to see some of these. My own efforts won't lead to an island of circulation of half dollars on the east side of Tucson, but I'm sure that some of the cashiers will get a kick out of some coins that they can buy out of the till to give to their kids.........or to keep for themselves.