This week's boxes of half dollars came in and I picked them up yesterday. Both were solid 2021P. I thought that was a bit odd since that would be a whole loft of NFIC dumped. A quick check of the Mint's website shows that so far in 2021, there have been 7.7 million Denver halves and 5.1 million Philadelphia halves minted. That's up pretty significantly from 2019 (3.4 million TOTAL P&D) and 2020 (5.7 Million TOTAL P&D). I'm wondering if the mint is pumping out half dollars due to the coin "shortage". You think they'd know that these things don't circulate in business...I wonder what the thought process is.
After ten straight boxes of 2020 D (I saved one for you) I finally stopped ordering them. Not sure whether they are back to releasing them for circulation or what, but not what I'm looking for.
Based on the mint's website, it looks like 2020 were still NIFC. Only 3.4 mil denver and 2.3 mil philly halves. I really hope that I don't end up with 10 straight boxes of 2021P halves...
Spend them. It’s fun watching the cashiers trying to figure out what they are and what to do with them, lol. Sometimes they even give you extra money back.
From the mintage figures I would have to agree they are making the 2021's for circulation. (They made the 2018's for circulation as well.) For other years if you add up the coins from the mint set sales, plus the rolls sales, plus the bag sales they come very close to the reported mintage figures. That isn't the case in 2018, and probably 2021 as well. I believe for 2018 there was a surplus of something like 8 million coins. Compared to previous years it looks like so far there is a surplus of maybe 6 million coins this year. Also if you look through the annual mint reports there is no seigniorage profit list for half dollars for any of the "NIFC" years except for 2018 which shows a seigniorage of $3.3 Million on $3.8 Million dollars worth of half dollars shipped. (That is the equivalent of 7,600 boxes. That sounds like a circulation issue.)
