Modern Kennedy Halves - worth the money?

Does anyone collect modern Kennedy halves?
Is there any real return in buying them?

I've seen the Mint sells a set of 20x Denver and 20x Philadelphia uncirculated rolls for $32.95 plus shipping, which puts each 50 cent piece at a premium at about 0.95 cents each after all costs.

And I still see previous years still for sale.
Is there any numismatic market for these? Or any errors obtained from these?

In the past I just buy one of the Silver sets that they are in, but I'm also curious on the regular nickel/copper modern half.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

For top graded graded ones mainly from PCGS and to a lesser extent NGC there is, as far as raw ones not so much.

 

I buy one P and one D business strike every year to put in my Dansco album.

 

First, I think that the Mint price of $32.95 is for a 2-roll set. That is $20 face or 82.375c per coin.

Yes, it is possible to make a decent profit if you can find enough coins to submit for grading as long as they are MS68 or better, but you can't hope to achieve this if you just buy a couple of rolls. Personally, I always had better success buying Mint bags because this was the cheapest cost per coin. A few coins graded MS68 can pay for the purchase of the bag in addition to the grading fees. (I don't recommend this if you don't know what you're doing.)

The 2001-D Kennedy, below, came from a $100 Mixed P&D bag that the Mint released in 2004. The bag sold for $135, so the cost of the coin was 68c. However, I don't recommend that you hold your breath hoping to find a major error like this.

Chris

 

With kennedys a lot of dates a single 68 will more than pay for everything and deliver a nice profit if not bring a grand to a couple grand. PCGS doesn't even have a single 68 for the 2015s yet and several other post 2000 dates are missing 68s as well. Most of the ones that do have them the population is under 10.

 

That may be, but I think $1k to $2K is a stretch, and anyone who would pay that much should have his head examined.

Chris

 

It's not, especially not when its a pop 1/0.

https://coins.ha.com/itm/kennedy-ha...3-5282.s?ic4=ListView-ShortDescription-071515

That one sold for 4k

This one is a pop 8/0 that sold for 1k

https://coins.ha.com/itm/kennedy-ha...8-7933.s?ic4=ListView-ShortDescription-071515

MS 68s are exceedingly hard to find with Kennedy's even in the modern dates.

 

How much do you want to bet that they sold through HA to Registry owners who have deep pockets with few "cents".

I should point out that I haven't seen large bags



sold by the Mint for quite some time. I quit buying bags in 2007. I'm guessing that those 68's came from bulk submissions by one of the major national dealers. I don't encourage collectors, here, to try this unless they can afford to buy hundreds, if not thousands, of rolls at a time.

Chris

 

At least one of the 68s came from a collector as I was fortunate enough to come into possession of one of them. It was just one of those coins that even in a very well put together album just jumped off the page at you so I sent it in.

I'm not sure how much bulk submitting occurs with the normal issues for them now a days, but I completely agree it is not something I would recommend chasing. While the 68s are big money quite a few of those dates the 67s are basically just break even. It's kind of all or nothing and really with how few 68s there are you need some luck to find one.

Ironically even in this down market the modern market seems to be pretty healthy. I am sure they sold to the registry guys or someone who loves their Kennedy set, doesn't seem like the type of coin that would end up in a type set.

Right now I believe the biggest bag the mint sells is a $100 for $140, compared to some other series the premium is kind of brutal trying to get bags from the mint. Time and resources would certainly be better spent elsewhere then chasing MS 68 Kennedys. PCGS only has 900 clad 68s in the whole run and 3 dates account for over a third of that. There is also 25 69s and 17 of those are from the 14-D

 

Yep, even the stats for NGC are very low, but I was lucky to have a (small) few come back in 68. I wasn't greedy. I sold them cheap so I could cover expenses and make a profit. The halves were a lot like the Ikes. The big coins got beat up a lot on the production line.

I had my best success with the Sac dollars and the SQ's from Mint bags. I had dozens of those business strikes grade 68. My best was the 2007-P Sac. NGC has 44 listed at 68 and 14 of them were mine. Those figures haven't changed since 2008.

If it wasn't for the fact that I am on a fixed income, if I had the opportunity to buy some original Mint bags of Kennedy half dollars, I might just give it a shot.

Chris

 

Wow, a lot to think about here.

But since I wasn't considering buying the coins by the bags, I think I'll just pass or just get one set and store away just because. We'll see how I think about it later on when I contemplate getting the new gold commem Liberty.

 

A modern half is a modern half. I don't care if some company says it's exceptional, it is what it is. It's like making a silk purse out of a sow's ear. IMO the top pop modern market is a huge scam created by the existence of TPGs. Bust those suckers out of their slabs and they are $10 coins at best.

There's a sucker born every minute.

 

^^^^^^
I was literally about to post this exact thing.
But I am unable to improve on your eloquent post.

 

What about modern proof half dollars? I have a 1972 and 1973 roll of proof half dollars that I got for $12 each.

 

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, even 13 year olds.

Chris

 

Well, it is my opinion, but a lot of people share the same opinion as me. Despite this, my opinion is not fact - and neither is anyone's opinion. Collect top pop moderns if you want, but I'll stick with my classics.

 

That's fine, but tell me this.........When was the last time you bought a classic for a couple of bucks and sold it for $1K?

Chris

 

At one point all coins were modern and there were people who said the same thing about collecting them... The only reason the coins at the high price range hold their value is because there is a market for them. It doesn't matter how much twist the TPGs put on marketing, if there is no buyer there is no worth.

 

Yeah! I tried but failed on that particular error.

However, the 2001 Bags had other notable errors which "kinda" made the expenditure worthwhile.

This one was fairly cool to find!

http://koinpro.tripod.com/Articles/2001P50cConvexRev.htm

And there were some nice clashes in the bags as well.

I've been buying the bags of Kennedy's since 2001 and 2001 was the only year which really produced anything. I'll go through each bag looking for obvious errors (none so far) of nice high quality coins.

It's more or less a crap shoot.

Npw, earlier clad coins are LOADED with varieties and error's which are always really neat to find.

Notably, 1971 has a bunch of Doubled Dies.
1972 has a significant DDO which is fairly scarce.
1973 has a really cool DDO along with 2 other not so scarce DDO's.
1974 has the "King" of the Kennedy DDO's while 1977 has a DDO which is fairly significant and pricey.
1988 has a DDO Proof Coin and 1992 has a DDO Silver coin.

Given the size of the half dollar, the Kennedy Half Dollars have a LOT to offer in the variety field but then, you gotta be into that sort of thing.

 

This is true but these coins are extremely hard to find much less get those pop 1 grades. I expect that the submitter has a lot to do with it.