Is the 2014-D Kennedy Half the last 90% Silver Uncirculated Coin?

PCGS:
https://www.pcgs.com/coinfacts/coin/2014-d-50c-silver-50th-anniversary-set/530179

 

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In 2014, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy half dollar, they released a few special sets. One set included 4x silver Kennedy halves (MS, PR, Rev PR, and enhanced MS), another set included 2x clad Kennedy halves struck in higher relief, and lastly a .75oz gold Kennedy half.

The link you shared is for a silver MS 2014-D half; however, note there are non-silver 2014-D halves as well.

 

Technically speaking no; that would be the 2018-P Breast Cancer Awareness uncirculated silver dollar. (Since 2019 all silver US coins have been minted in 99.9% silver.)

If you just mean a silver business strike version of a circulating US coin, whether or not it was intended to circulate, then yes you'd be correct.

The last silver US coins actually intended to circulate were the 1969 40% silver Kennedy half dollars (1969 & 1969-D). In 1970 Kennedy half dollars were only issued in uncirculated and proof sets, and circulating Kennedy half dollars went to copper/nickel clad in 1971.

 

Yes, it could be the last although @Troodon is correct about the Breast Cancer coin. The issues .999 silver now, and I don't see that changing. I'll bet it's cheaper to do that than bother with the alloy.

 

Thank you for adding your voice in confirming this.

 

That's precisely why they changed from .900 to .999 silver; it saves them money for two reasons:
1. .900 is a standard that by 2018 was only used by the US Mint. US law requires the Mint to only use silver bought from US silver mines, that were free to sell to anyone; they had to make custom batches of the .900 silver alloy for the mint while .999 is a standard they already made for several customers. Using what the mines already were producing saved them money and gave them more sources to buy from.
2. .999 silver is significantly softer than .900 silver, so the dies used to mint silver coins have much longer useful lives, somewhere on the order of being able to be used 3 to 4 times longer before they wore out.

This required them to repeal a law passed in 1835 that required them to use .900 silver for silver coins (except for American silver eagles, authorized in a separate piece of legislation that always specified them to be minted in .999 silver).

Since 2019 all US silver coins, including commemoratives and silver proofs, have been minted in .999 silver.

 

The law required them to by newly mined US silver, but that was for the silver eagles. I don't believe there is such a restriction for other coinage.

The mint does not produce their own silver planchets. They get the planchets ready to strike from a private manufacturer though I do believe the mint supplied the silver to the planchet firms. In general if you purchase silver bars it is provided in .999 fine form. There are only a few of these planchet supplying firms and they produce planchets for mints around the world.

Most if not all of these other mints are producing .999 fine coins so all the planchet firm has to do is roll out the bars, blank and upset them. Scrap can just be melted and rolled again.

Pre 2019 to make 900 fine for the US mint meant that the 999 fine bars had to be melted and copper added. After casting the ingots they had to be assayed to be sure they were within tolerance (.899 to .901 fine) If they aren't they have to remelt, mix, pour and then assay again etc. until the assay came out right. Then rolled and blanked. Scrap had to be kept segregated and melted and assayed yet again before rolling and blanking. All this extra work and the copper alloy required meant that the cost of the .900 fine planchets was higher than the .999 fine planchets even though the .999 fine planchets contained more silver.

The law change to achieve the change in fineness was minor. The original law said the silver coins had to be .900 fine, after the alteration it said they had to be at least .900 fine.