Seems that shvt should get melted and recoined as ASE's or something. Maybe .900 coin silver doesn't melt much ?, but .400 silver should be vanishing fast ( IMO) who wants it in that form ? I'll bet that .400 stuff melts a lot ? Maybe a MS-67-8 1967 half is a condition rarity ? The supply will melt away, eh ? I don't buy modern crap like that....but I see the supply going away. just a thought !
They made them .400% because the government couldn't afford to make all coins 90% silver anymore it 1964, but they had only had the Kennedy Half out for 1 Year previously (1964)...and they felt that since Mr. Kennedy had just passed, it would be wrong for them to not include the precious metal in the coins, so the government only minted them in 40% silver content. The half dollar was the only coin that was minted in 40% silver following the year 1965.
There were some Ike dollars in 40% minted for collectors. You can occasionally get lucky and find them at a bank.
Just don't melt the 70-d's . They are out there in the wild, I've yet to find one but I have read posts on here about people finding them. There were more minted than 1970 mint sets sold.
They are harder and harder to find. I don't roll search anymore. I got lucky once http://www.cointalk.com/t109004/ On my paticular lucky find there were lots of mint state coins in the bag. I kept one roll of each date for myself. I tried to resell some of the others but could not get any dealers to pay a premium. Right now I'm just holding. I have assembled a "homeade" bag of 40% halves. I occasionally get 40% silver halves from banks in customer wrapped rolls or loose from tellers. They are never in mint state. I'm not sure what a graded MS 40% half would go for. I'm not sure if the furnaces are running as much as they were in 1980 but I am sure the number of 40% halves is dwindling. One thing you have to remember is if the only ones that are kept are the nice ones then that will be all that is available and the premium (if any) will go down.
It's really too bad they didn't handle the silver situation for Kennedy halves like they did with Ikes. Have copper-nickel coins for circulation, and 40% examples for collectors in mint and proof sets only. We'd probably have half dollars in circulation now if they would have.
