Kennedy Half Dollars 1964 to present

It is said that every American who was energetic in 1963 remembers just what he or she burden at the jiffy they heard the hearsay of President Kennedy being shot. Then, just a combine of hours later, came the appalling boom that he had died. It's hard for anybody who was not a witness to the sad being totally to comprehend the substance of damage which overtook the state. This grief found expression in the renaming of many community structures, roadways and even geographical skin in nobility of the slain chief. Of all these memorials, however, the United States the dough behavior Kennedy's friendly image will almost sure continue the greatest, since coins, being virtually indestructible, have a long roadway film as the strongest witnesses to saga.

The buzz of the Kennedy half buck's inception is perhaps best told in the lexis of then Chief Engraver of the United States Mint, the behind Gilroy Roberts:

"Shortly after the tragedy of President Kennedy's ruin, November 22, 1963, Miss Eva Adams, the Director of the Mint, telephoned me at the Philadelphia Mint and explained that important consideration was being given to placing President Kennedy's depiction on a new device U.S. silver coin and that the district money, half dough or the one dough were under discussion.

"A day or so later, about November 27, Miss Adams called again and taught me that the half cash had been preferred for the new goal, that Mrs. Kennedy did not want to switch Washington's likeness on the part cash. Also it had been resolute to use the profile study that appears on our Mint slant award for President Kennedy and the President's Seal that has been worn on the rear of this and other Mint medals."

This work was undertaken immediately, Gilroy Roberts sculpting the sketch face, while his longtime Assistant Engraver, Frank Gasparro, primed the obstacle fashion effect the presidential seal. Both being amply experienced in these tasks. Along with the sculpting of different mint medals, Roberts had arranged the models of John R. Sinnock's intend for the Benjamin Franklin half buck of 1948, following Sinnock's death the prior year. Gasparro too was an expert of several honor designs, and he had most freshly created the new reversal which debuted on the Lincoln cent in 1959. For these two artists, time was of the essence, as the new year loomed early, and the Treasury Department did not want to topic any of the free-form Franklin half dollars square 1964. Complicating matters still extend was a cruel, nationwide scarcity of all coins. Half dollars of one mode or the other had to be immediate for coining early in the new year to avoid a decline of this dearth.

Meantime, however, there was an official hurdle to overcome: Under presented law, U. S. Coin designs could not be misused more regularly than every 25 living; the Franklin half was then only 15 years old, and its replacement would quite exactly force an act of Congress. Partisan disputes were mainly set aside in recognition of the residents's and the world's loss, and Congress managed to badge legislation permitting a change in the half buck's construct with only a few weeks' contest. The Act of December 30, 1963 made the Kennedy half buck a reality.

Using his unfilled models for JFK's presidential award as a pilot, Roberts has done his intial rendering of the half buck within living of it's commissioning. Gasparro, too, worked feverishly, and hardship strikes of the Kennedy half were run off and dispatched to Mint Director Adams on December 13. A few days later, these were viewed by the President's widow, Jacqueline, and brother, U. S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. Incorporating some of Mrs. Kennedy's comments into his revised models, Roberts had additional tryout strikes coined. These were viewed and approved by Treasury Secretary Douglas Dillon, who agreed that Mrs. Kennedy's wishes had been met.

The first Kennedy half dollars made for distribution proofs coined early in 1964. By January 30, recurring-issue penny began at the Denver Mint, and the Philadelphia Mint followed costume the week after. These coins were free to the communal amid much fanfare and anticipation on March 24, 1964. Despite warning the number of coins they would advertise to each individual, banks were cursorily denuded of their materials; few of the coins ever achieved actual circulation. From its very inception, the Kennedy half cash became a token, one prized not only by Americans but by the recent President's many foreign admirers, as well.

The number of Kennedy halves twisted during 1964 was enormous in comparison to preceding half buck mintages. Despite this, the coins repeated to vanish as swiftly as they were issued. With the nationwide shortage of all coins screening no let-up, Congress enacted a law which allowed freezing the 1964 court on U. S. Coins pending such time as the calamity conceded. This was done in a strength to discourage billboard by collectors and speculators, but the valid problem lay in methods of distribution and recirculation, pretty than being caused by the insignificant actions of hobbyists.

When Congress opted to eliminate silver from the dime and area creation in 1965, it reached a compromise with the the dollar: Its silver contents, while greatly abridged generally, was located almost wholly at the coin's apparent by bonding three strips of metal, the private one being primarily copper. These "silver-clothed" pieces were coined from 1965 through 1970. Despite these many steps, Kennedy half dollars still botched to circulate to any great amount, and the inquiry of eliminating its silver gratify altogether was eventually raised. After protracted meditate during 1969-70, a debit was lastly passed near the end of 1970 which called for the coining of half dollars in the same composition worn since 1965 for the dime and part: two outer layers of copper and nickel bonded to a central interior of absolute copper. From 1971 onward, the Kennedy the dollar would show the red approach which had already become intimate to Americans who mourned the cursory of silver from the populace's currency. Alas, even this concession was not enough to make half dollars reappear in circulation, and nowadays they are known only to coin collectors and gaming casino consumers.

For the land's bicentennial in 1976, an unusual quash was prepared by Seth G. Huntington which depicted Philadelphia's Independence Hall, birthplace of the United States. Huntington's object had been preferred from among numerous entries in a 1973 competition. Bicentennial halves manner the dual dates 1776-1976 were coined during 1975 and 1976 in both copper-nickel-dressed and silver-dressed compositions. The latter were not released to circulation, but fairly were sold at a premium to collectors in both uncirculated and testimony editions.

There are no rare year/mint combinations in the Kennedy the dollar series, while some pieces saw imperfect distribution. Proofs were coined for collectors in 1964 at the Philadelphia Mint and since 1968 at the San Francisco Mint. So-called "special mint set" coins were unfilled in place of right proofs during 1965-67, and these are commonly together with the resilient sets. The 1970-D half dollars were struck only to satiate that year's tips for mint sets, pending the change to copper-nickel penny; the silver-clothed, bicentennial halves were equally coined only for collectors. In 1987, the Mint announced the no half dollars of that year would be issued for circulation, and this caused a heave in the number of mint sets planned. Finally, since 1992, the Mint has offered evidence sets of both the conventional copper-nickel coinage and ones in which the dime, quarter and half are .900 keen silver, the composition used in 1964 and earlier years.

SPECIFICATIONS:

Diameter: 30.6 millimeters Edge: Reeded Weight: 12.50 grams (silver) Composition: .900 silver.100 copper Net substance: .36169 scrap pure silver Weight: 11.50 grams (silver-dressed) Composition: .400 silver.200 copper bonded to .209 silver.791 copper Net weight: .14792 degree pure silver Weight: 11.34 grams (copper-nickel-clad) Composition: .750 copper.250 nickel bonded to pure copper

BIBLOGRAPHY: Breen, Walter, Walter Breen's Complete Encyclopedia of U.S. and Colonial Coins, F.C.I. Press/Doubleday, New York, 1988. Taxay, Don, The U.S. Mint and Coinage, Arco Publishing Co., New York, 1966. Tomaska, Rick Jerry, Cameo and Brilliant Proof Coinage of the 1950 to 1970 Era, R & I Publications, Encinitas, CA, 1991. Wiles, James, Ph.D, The Kennedy The Dollar Book, Stanton Printing & Publishing, Savannah, GA, 1998. Yeoman, R.S., A Guide Book of United States Coins, 49th Edition, Western Publishing Co., Racine, WI, 1995.

Coin Information Provided Courtesy NGC.

Franklin Half Dollars 1948-1963

In 1948, World War II had given way to an uneasy calm-a "Cold War," as presidential adviser Bernard Baruch so aptly named the new climate of international tension. The year also witnessed the killing of baseball legend Babe Ruth, the birth of the State of Israel and, with his presidential selection commotion of Thomas E. Dewey, a new lease on life in the White House for Harry S Truman.

In 1948, an important change took place in United States change as well, when the Franklin half money made its entrance. Its introduction finished the conversion of U.S. coin designs from allegorical figures to portraits of notorious Americans. It also rang down the curtain on an era that many involve as the blond age of U. S. Currency art. The Walking Liberty half bucked, last struck in 1947, was the decisive precious-metal coin enduring in production from the early 20th-century interlude that spawned the "Mercury" dime, Standing Liberty area and Saint-Gaudens magnify eagle.

Mint Director Nellie Tayloe Ross had contemplated a coin reverence Benjamin Franklin ever since a U.S. Mint nobility ready in Franklin's honor in 1933 by John R. Sinnock, the Mint's chief sculptor-engraver. Evidence suggests that Ross might have made the change in the early 1940s, when the half dough's conceive, worn for the statutory lowest of 25 living, became eligible for replacement. Although escalating production burden occasioned by World War II postponed Ross' strategy, she showed her enthusiasm for the predict by directing Sinnock to invent a Franklin coin on a contingency source. It would be hard to criticize Director Ross for her variety of Ben Franklin as a U.S. money focus. Of all the Founding Fathers, Franklin very possible enjoyed the most build among his contemporaries, not only in this country but also abroad. He was fairly legendary as an imprinter, publisher, author, inventor, scientist and moderator, and he played a crucial task in ration the colonies return their independence by securing crucial aid from France.

In an oration at the promotion of the Franklin half cash, Ross recalled the people had urged her to place Franklin's likeness on the cent because he was identified so narrowly with the guideline "A money saved is twopence vindicate" (often misquoted as "A currency saved is a penny earned"). Ross explained her catalog of the half buck: "You will permit, I trust, that the fifty-cent part, being bigger and of silver, lends itself much better to the production of an impressive result," she declared.

Sinnock's picture of Franklin, modeled after a bust by 18th-century sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon, is bold and cleanse, contrasting sharply with the clever, complete depiction of Miss Liberty on the Walking Liberty coin it replaced. LIBERTY is extolled above the right-facing portrayal, IN GOD WE TRUST below and the time to Franklin's right. Tucked below Franklin's shoulder are Sinnock's initials, JRS.

The Liberty Belled on the repeal made sense as a compliment to Franklin, since both have become narrowly identified not only with the populace's birth but also with the city of Philadelphia. Three inscriptions are arranged around the timer in the same minus serif tailor used on the frontage: UNITED STATES OF AMERICA is above, HALF DOLLAR below and E PLURIBUS UNUM, in much lesser script, to the left. To the right of the timer is a frail-looking eagle. This had been mandatory by law on the half cash since 1792 and was reaffirmed by the Coinage Act of 1873, which mandated the post of an eagle on every U.S. silver coin superior to the dime. The eagle was added by Gilroy Roberts, who finished work on the coin following Sinnock's fatality in 1947.

Understandably, the central Commission of Fine Arts (an advisory body) took deliver with the eagle's size. Oddly enough, they also disapproved of displaying the crack in the Liberty Bell, arguing that "to show this might charge to puns and to statements derogatory to United States money." Although the Commission recommended a blueprint competition, the Treasury Department approved Sinnock's models lacking change.

Years later, Sinnock was accused of modeling his report of the Liberty Bell, lacking prim belief, on a sketch by performer John Frederick Lewis. The robbery first occurred in 1926, when Sinnock apparently used the sketch in fashioning his purpose for the commemorative half money marking the sesquicentennial of U.S. independence. His Franklin half buck overturn figure was patterned, in turn, on that earlier work. Numismatic allusion books now praise Lewis tardily for his role.

Although Franklin half dollar mintages were modest by novel-day standards, the string contains no issues that are particularly erratic. The production lowed headland came in 1953, when the Philadelphia Mint struck just under 2.8 million examples; the peak occurred in 1963, when the Denver Mint made just over 67 million. Franklin halves also were minted in San Francisco. On fork-mint issues, the D or S mintmark appears above the bell on the contrary. Total mintage for the chain, with proofs, was almost 498 million coins.

Because they are so bounteous, in circulated situation most Franklin halves take little or no premium above their bullion amount. Several dates are subtle, however, in the upper mint-national grades, especially with effusive defined "bell defenses" near the Liberty Bell's foot. Although the relatively low mintage 1949-D and 1950-D issues are considered "key" dates in the chain, some coins with higher mintages, while customary in lower grades, also command impressive premiums in Mint State-65 and above. These coins routinely came with weak strikes, and the paucity of "ornaments" is compounded by the statement that few were wisely saved. Dates in this grouping involve 1960-D, 1961-P and D and 1962-P and D. Proofs were issued every year from 1950 through 1963 as part of yearly evidence sets: over 15.8 million were made. Small numbers of proofs were struck with cameo disparity, an attractive frozen outward on the campaign contrasted with a polished mirror-like appearance in the fields. These cameo coins can beget substantial premiums over the prices of ordinary proofs without such contrast.

A full set of Franklin halves consists of 35 different question strikes and 14 different proofs. Because it is so compact and certainly affordable in minus-than-unspoiled grades, the series is widely serene by year and mint. Those with deeper pockets who ardor a challenge seek to assemble dating-and-mint sets in MS-65 and above or collections of high-grade proof Franklins with resonant cameo contrast. Points on the design to first show garb are Franklin's cheek, shoulder and fleece behind the ear and the lettering and ranks on the Liberty Bell.

Franklin half dollars were made for just 16 time. The series was cut succinct at the end of 1963, when John F. Kennedy's shocking assassination led to the concept of a new the dollar memorializing the martyred head.

SPECIFICATIONS:

Diameter: 30.6 millimeters Weight: 12.50 grams composition: .900 silver.100 copper Edge: Reeded Net load: .36169 degree innocent silver

BIBLOGRAPHY: Breen, Walter, Walter Breen's Complete Encyclopedia of U.S. and Colonial Coins, F.C.I. Press/Doubleday, New York, 1988. Ehrmantraut, Jack, Jr., An Analysis of Gem Franklin Half Dollars, Five Seasons Publishers, Hiawatha, IA, 1983. Taxay, Don, The U.S. Mint and Coinage, Arco Publishing Co., New York, 1966. Tomaska, Rick, The Complete Guide to Franklin Half Dollars, DLRC Press, Virginia Beach, VA, 1997. Vermeule, Cornelius, Numismatic Art in America, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1971. Yeoman, R.S., A Guide Book of United States Coins, 47th Edition, Western Publishing Co., Racine, WI, 1993.

Coin Information Provided Courtesy NGC.