I know we can’t put an exact date on it but there must be a rough time period when they fell out of common use. Maybe it was after 1964 because the silver was too valuable to use them? People wanted to save the new Kennedy? Ever seen a worn, circulated Kennedy half? Silver or non-silver? Not many. Was looking at some early WLHs today and am just amazed how many are in VG condition or even much worse. You’d have to think there’s a good decade or two of circulation on them. Maybe three or more? The WLH was a workhorse coin based on how many worn down examples you see. In 1916-1917 doesn’t look like many people set them aside as keep sakes.
Anecdotally I'd say they circulated fairly regularly at least until the late 70s. I pulled at least 4 1964 Kennedy's out of the till in the 74-76 time frame and even a well-worn Franklin. I had a pretty sizeable stack of clad that I spend in 1983 because I was broke, so those circulated then too.
I started paying attention sometime in the late '80s, and I can't remember half dollars ever circulating much. So it must've been some time before that.
It started in '64 when they announced no more silver starting in '65. That pretty much put an end to the Walkers and Frankies for the most part. And since just about everybody was already, not collecting but hoarding the Kennedy halves, that was about it for half dollars. Oh sure there were still some in circulation but no where near what there was in the years prior. I had an aunt who was a bank teller, and I could always walk in her bank and get a roll of silver dollars or a roll or two halves every week. I'd take 'em home, see if there was any I wanted, and if there wasn't I'd take 'em back the next day and cash 'em in. But about 6 months or so into '64 - that all went away.
I remember getting them in change in the mid '70s when I was a young kid - I got a bicentennial half in change in the summer of '75 and remember thinking it was crazy to get a coin dated 1776-1976 in change the year before. I also remember going to banks and seeing silver halves in the teller trays and wishing I was allowed to buy them.
They basically stopped circulating when silver was changed to clad. I typed this yesterday around 3 pm but it didn’t post.
I also pulled one or more bicentennial halves from change, likely 1976 or 1977. Another possibly entertaining anecdote is the stack of Kennedy halves I received from my late mother-in-law that she pulled from circulation, in Thailand. She worked as an accountant for the US embassy there, so it must have been from either tourists or military paying for whatever services the embassy was providing at the time. I'd have to dig it out and see what the dates are on the clad ones but it had to be on into the late 70s at least when they were still showing up in change at the embassy in Thailand. These are the ones containing silver. In her bag of goodies were also Ike dollars and a few silver quarters and dimes.
A few years ago I paid for some tacos with Kennedy halfs (left over from a roll search). The young kid at the drive-thru window was super excited to get them. He knew what they were, what they were worth and how to count change in his head. Obvious coin collector!
The Kennedy half dollar killed the half dollar as a circulating coin. Not long after that, speculators got wind that the price of silver was headed up to the point when the spot price would exceed the face value of the silver coins in circulation. It didn't really happen for a number of years after 1964, but by the late 1960's, coin dealers were buying 90% silver coins for nominal amounts over face of like 8%. By the early 1970s, nearly all of the 90% silver coins were out of circulation. People continued to hoard Kennedy half dollars, even the pieces dated 1971 and later which had no silver in them. They didn't understand that those coins had no numismatic or melt value. I ran into many of these hoards when I was buying coins from non collectors who were my parent's age. The numismatic and silver coins they had were worth something. The hoards of copper-nickel Kennedy half dollars were worth face value. They could not believe it.
Of course the end of circulation for halves came over a period of years, but I think the time differed by region. My dad was a small town banker in central Alabama, and I worked in the bank as a kid wrapping coins. Silver dollars and halves circulated more out west, I was told, but we still used both, in limited quantities, until the end of silver coins. By the time I was working summers as a teller in the late 1960s and early 70s, I don't remember anyone using halves much anymore, although once in a great while someone would deposit some. Once a person brought in a hoard of halves from a deceased grandparent--Barbers and Walking Liberties mostly, maybe a couple of thousand dollars face. The grandparent had lost money in the depression and never trusted banks or paper money after that, so for decades he had put all his savings in a box under his bed. The reason for the demise of the half from circulation is more complicated than just the loss of silver. Clad dimes and quarters still circulate. I believe it has more to do with the general inflation of the 1970s. Before then, a half dollar represented considerable buying power, and one or two in your pocket was good. But with inflation the value/weight ratio just didn't justify a pocket full of them, so people turned more to paper. That's the main reason, in my opinion, dollar coins didn't take off. As for the dimes and quarters, they are still useful for making change (for those of us who sometimes still use cash), but nobody carries around significant amounts of them. I generally dump them in a basket on my dresser the way people once did cents, and one day I'll roll them and take them to my bank. None of it circulates like it used to. When was the last time you found an undamaged dime or quarter in VG or less?
Thing is, though, the value/weight ratio is exactly the same for halves as it is for quarters and dimes, and better than it is for nickels or cents. I'm inclined to give more weight to the theories from earlier in the thread: a double-whammy from the shift to clad in 1964 (causing people to hoard silver) and the sentimental hoarding of Kennedy halves. By the time that wore off, people were just out of the habit of using halves, and preferred quarters.
When I was kid in the late 1950s and started spending my allowance and what I earned from mowing the lawn, I received half dollars in change, but it was kind of unusual. It seemed like all of the half dollars disappeared with the 1964 Kennedy coin even though the mintage for the them was huge.
I understand the ratio is the same, but the absolute weight in your pocket is not, which is why I dump most change in a basket. A nickel, a couple of dimes and two quarters is tolerable; five or six halves becomes heavy, especially with the above small change also in your pocket. Before the inflation of the 70s, two halves would buy a sandwich, fries and a coke at a fast food restaurant, but by the end of the 70s you'd have to have considerable weight in coins to do that, not to mention if you had a date! Better carry paper (or plastic). The loss of silver did not stop dimes and quarters from circulating because, in small amounts, they don't weigh much and are convenient for making change for not-quite-exact paper transactions.
The 40% half dollar was a compromise to please the silver lobby. They wanted the dime and quarter to be 40% silver coins too. I wrote a paper on it in college. I read a lot of the debate in Congress at that time.
I have run across a few Kennedys in my time roll hunting. There have been quite a few that would probably strait grade Good or Fine. They could have been pocket pieces. yeah. I just think that folks that used to use more checks/plastic than cash really didn't see how much they actually transferred hands, even well into the 90's.
Casinos used to use half dollars significantly, if I recall. All Kennedys of course during my era. 80s
