Getting Rolls From Banks

Rolls of half dollars are not plentiful--at least with the bank branches I frequent. Sure, one might be successful ordering a box, but loose rolls are uncommon. Occasionally one or two customer wrapped rolls, which show signs of having been searched, pop up--and a small number of individual pieces too. Polite persistence is key to nabbing what does surface.

My first visit to the USA was a work trip to Boston, MA in 1991. I went to several banks asking for halves and ended up with a sole 1974 Kennedy. Then a few years later I was in tiny Durango, CO, and asked for some halves in a bank and they let me have as many rolls as I wanted. A bank I visited totally at random in Orlando, FL also had plenty of halves and didn't seem to find anything unusual about me asking for them. On my last visit to the USA last Spring in Galveston, TX I was only able to get a handful of halves at two different banks. Another bank said they kept rolls of halves but would only hand them out to bank customers. Most of the P- and D- mint clad halves from 1971-2001 in my collection came from bank rolls: I did once get a CWR roll at a bank in Richmond, VA that had about five 40% Kennedys. I must add that, considering I am basically wasting their time and giving them extra work, I've always found American bank tellers to be really friendly and courteous and they often ask where I'm from and we have a nice friendly conversation.

Thanks for the info, I was really looking forward to searching thru the rolls, one of my favorite past times back in my younger days of collecting. I'll keep asking, but now won't expect too much!

My bank (PNC) does supply halves upon request, but only in full $500 boxes.
Also it can take several requests and several weeks for the box to show up.
The box I finally did get contains lots of BU 2024P, 2023P, 2020P and waay too many abused specimens from the 1970s and '80s.

The half dollar was already killed in the same sense as the cent is now.

The half dollars were not being ordered by the Fed and was therefore de facto NIFC from 2002 to 2017 and 2019. They only recently started getting into circulation again in 2018 and then 2020 to date.

http://goccf.com/t/437608&whichpage=16#3959837

I cannot think of a present application for 50¢ coins. One of the big customers used to be casinos with slot machines. If the United States never struck another half dollar coin, we probably have enough in circulation today to last indefinitely, even with occasional minor wear.

That is pretty much what happened from 2002 to 2017. They only made enough to satisfy collector demand. But they did eventually run out, which is why people are finding the recent years in their boxes. If production slows again they may indeed last until they finally pull the plug on all coins.