1955-P Franklin Half Dollar Value Question

I don't really know much about Franklin halves but my uneducated guess the slabbed population for this date is dramatically higher.

Dearborn - My question resulted from a quick look at Red Book values. with a mintage of 2,498,181, the 55-P is the lowest mintage of the series, whereas a 1949-S Franklin half at a mintage of 3,744,000 is valued much, much higher. I'm obviously overlooking something because I don't understand how coins in comparable condition can be disparately valued. Perhaps it has something to do with the reverence the San Francisco Mint enjoys. I don't understand it. By the way thank you for taking the time to try and help. I appreciate you. Jack

@SomeGoodCents and I are really suggesting the same thing.

Change his word slabbed for surviving MS and his informed speculation is the same as mine.

Nickelsearcher, Exactly, Well Portrayed. I've seen Mint sets of 1955 by the Hundreds. I hoarded the Same Years and Years ago, 1955 Great Year !!!! Many sets had Usually a Better than MS-60 Coin too. I believe there are Plenty of Us out there too, Just soon to pass the baton, What Then ? Never really put the Same weight into the TPG'S Pop reports, " KNOWN " , Highly misleading Term.......The Franklin halves have Plenty of Die Varieties, Errors Too

Coins of every domination were hoarded in then-record numbers that year, so there are a lot of BU examples of 1955-P halves out there available.

The 1955 Doubled Die Obverse Error Cent had everyone checking their pennies and other coins. That helped stimulate interest in the hobby from people who weren't collectors before.

Of the 11 coins produced that year, seven had much lower-than-normal mintages, and collectors were well aware of this as it was happening. Thus, the 1955 Halves, 1955-D Quarters, all three mints of the 1955 Dimes, 1955 Philly Nickels, and 1955-S Cents were hoarded en masse.

As I recall, one collector/dealer had a hoard of seven MILLION 1955-S cents at one point. Yeah, one out of every six minted!

Thanks to all of this hoarding, the scarcer 1955-dated coins have always been challenging to find in circulation and via roll hunting. I have a couple of personal examples below:

In all of my years of collecting, I've only encountered one 1955 dime in a hoard or searching, and that one was an AU 1955-S found in my Grandfather's old stash of 1,000 or so silver dimes put away in the mid-late 1960s. Not too long ago, I lucked into a stash of 450 silver dimes via CRH which had been sitting since 1964. Three of the rolls were all new 1964-Ds, but the 300 other coins, including one roll which was all dated 1963 or earlier, did not include a single 1955-dated coin.

I search a lot of nickels via coin roll hunting and the 1955-P does not show up nearly as often as it should, based on mintage (it appears about 50% as often as it should, statistically). The similar mintage coins (1949-S, 1950, 1951-S) all fit neatly into the graph despite their low mintages, so it's quite obvious this coin was put away a lot. It's so hard-to-find, that even 10 of the 11 War Nickels have been easier pulls for me via CRH (only the also widely-hoarded 1943-D is a harder find).