belpaire

Been looking at coins out of my pockets since the mid-fifties and scanning for the best to put in simple books, like many I would guess.

Recently, I was given a bunch of coins similarly colected by my Grandmother and Mother (not in books) which included quite a few silver coins. All these coins are being set aside for my daughters. I have been looking through these and putting the best in protected storage, the rest in rolls as kind of a silver "bullion" inheritance.

One 64 Kennedy half was particularly tarnished and headed for a bullion roll, but I hated to put such a grungy piece of metal in there with the rest. So I cleaned it off with silver cleaner (Yeah, I know, a really criminal offense in the coin collecting world). After cleaning, I it appeared that in a couple of places, small parts of silver clad had been lifted from a base metal. This puzzled me because I thought 1964 Kennedy half dollars were not silver clad. My 2003 Blue Book does not mention any such coin, but this is what either my Grandmother or Mother had.

Now I know that 99.999% of the time, these kinds of things are fakes. I also know that the coins I'm dealing with are strictly out of circulation and have been stored in my Mother's upstairs sewing room since the 60's. So this is why I joined the group, my curiosity got the better of me. What have I got here? If you have anything to share, thanking you in advance.

Hobo

When that coin was struck (assuming it is genuine) there were no clad planchets. It is very, very unlikely a genuine 1964 Kennedy half could have been struck on a 40% silver clad planchet.

I would suggest you take the coin to your local coin dealer and get his professional opinion. If he thinks it is genuine you might consider sending it in to one of the top tier grading services for authentication. (I would send it to ANACS because they will authenticate and grade cleaned coins while PCGS and NCG will not.)

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GDJMSP

Howdy belpaire - Welcome to the Forum !!

Weighing the coin will answer your question. If you don't have an accurate scale, any jewelry shop can weigh it for you.

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belpaire

Good evening CGJMSP: Good advice on weighing the coin. I'll give it a try. Have an Ohaus scale with sufficient accuracy, but can't remember if it will handle that much weight. Do know where it is. Thanks.

belpaire

Good evening Hobo; Thanks for the reply. If there were no clad planchets in 1964, I can't have a clad 64 half. So there must be another explanation. Only thing I can think is that the corrosion of the coin left sunken, discolored, dark spots that appear to be where a silver clad peeled off. I could try to scratch through the corrosion, but assuming I hit silver, I couldn't tell if it was 40% or 90%. And I have done enough damage with the cleaning. Someone else suggested I weigh the coin which means I need to find out what the weight should be. If my powder scale can handle it, I'll give that a try. Thanks again.

Treashunt

And...welcome to the forum.
Good luck with the coin.

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The Other Frank
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Coinlover

welcome to the forum!!

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Hobo

90% silver half = 12.50 g

40% silver half = 11.50 g

__________________
No state shall emit bills of credit, make any thing but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts, coin money . . . - US Constitution, Article 1, Section 10

ANA LM-3799; OHNS LM-59; SUSCC R-4005. All coins stored in bank safe deposit box.

mralexanderb

Welcome to CT. You'll learn a lot here.

I believe the Mint wanted to go to all 40% clad coinage by 1964 but because of the importance of the JFK coin they decided with the 90% coin. That doesn't mean there weren't 40% planchets around. There may have been a mix up or something else may have transpired within the mint.

Bruce

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