Should The Kennedy Half Have Never Existed?

How did I miss this thread?



And Canada DID reduce the size of their half dollar, and it still didn't circulate.



Add the fact that he, and Jackie, were wildly popular plus a TELEVISED assassination and the demand that he be put on a coin was a foregone conclusion.



Nope, the 64 would have still been 90% silver because all the coins were, and the 40% silver halves were a political sop to get the Western states to agree to the approval of the clad composition for the dime and quarter. The half would have gone 40% no matter who was on it.



No, the writing was on the wall for the end of silver coinage long before the assassination. The price of silver had risen to the point where all the silver coins were worth less than their metal content by January of 1963. All of the massive coinage of 1963 and 1964 silver coins produced to fight the coin shortage were issued at a loss. (And a big factor creating the shortage was that all the coin being produced were already worth more than their face value.)



Any hoarding of the 40% coins would have been because of the Kennedy fixation. They wouldn't have been hoarded because of their silver content because they were still worth more an money than as silver. The silver value didn't exceed the face value until 1974, long after the 40%er had been discontinued.



No we would probably have Franklin. But the time it would have reach the end of the 25 year run, 1973, the Treasury was solidly into their policy of resisting ANY changes in the designs on the coinage. Plus by then there were aready pushes for the Bicentennial coins and it would have been a natural to keep Franklin for that. No I feel fairly sure that if Kennedy hadn't been assassinated we would still have Franklin haves today.



Are you dead yet? 2016 Reagan dollar.

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Posted 04/28/2014 12:44 pm

I am of the opinion that the Kennedy half is one of the most beautiful coins I have ever seen. The reverse (presidential seal) is magnificent.

I believe the Kennedy half should have been a one year commemorative.

KK

When Walkers were circulating, 50¢ was all you needed in your pocket. It would cover a meal with desert etc. So the Walkers had a lot of years of usage. When it was easier to find silver in bank rolls, I also noted it was not hard to find decently worn Franklins.

By the time the 60s came around, prices were such that it took more than 50¢ to get through a day. The dollar was becoming what was needed to be carried in general. So the convenience of paper was used instead of carrying two or more halves. When I was a kid back then I asked adults, b/c I liked halves, why they did not use 50 cent pieces. The reply was always the same... why carry around the weight of multiple halves when I can use a bill?

Personally I wish more of the Walkers had not been used so much

You're welcome.

It's nice to see the discussion continuing. Personally, I do not particularly enjoy the Kennedy design. The Franklin design is marginally better, but the Walker is best, IMO.

Unfortunately, inflation has left the half dollar coin lacking, as Earle42 described, and any hope of a WLH revival or even a complete design change is probably a pipe dream. The half may very well end altogether with Kennedy's profile.

There are plenty of well worn Franklins from the 1950's as well. But by the time you get to the end of the Franklin series, due to coin shortages and the fact that the metal content was approaching the face value of the coin, the coins tende to be held more than spent. Then in Jan of 63 the metal value exceeded the face value and some hoarding began. Once the half went to 40% in 1965 all the 90% halves disappeared rapidly. So the later Franklins and the 64 Kennedy's never had a chance to circulate and become worn. After 1971 when the half went to coppernickel clad all the 40%ers disappeared as well so they never really had a chance to circulate either. Especially considering a lot of them had still been hoarded as JFK mementos. After roughly a decade of the half dollar being a non-circulating coin it had completely "fallen off the radar" and it just never came back into use after it switched to clad.