Are the official years of Kennedy half NIFCs actually known? Confusion among sources

Are the official years of Kennedy half NIFCs actually known? Red Book has a range listed, but according to Coin World, these years are not unquestionably correct. Reportedly for several of the years that Red Book calls NIFC, collectors have found UNC rolls at banks, suggesting they're not indeed NIFC. I emailed a main Coin World writer and he hasn't ever received a response from the Mint regarding which years the Federal Reserve ordered halves. So how do you figure out the fact of the matter?

 

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Oh, yeah not sure the year but most after 95' are NiFC.

 

https://www.pcgs.com/news/which-kennedy-half-dollars-where-not-issued-for-circulation

 

It's a two-fold problem.

Circulation quality coins are sold in sets, rolls, and bags every year. Those often get picked over and all but the best enter into circulation. Technically NIFC, but...

Second, the Fed has ordered half-dollar coins several times over the past couple of years.

The official statistics are here: https://www.usmint.gov/about/production-sales-figures/circulating-coins-production

Select circulating coins and a year.

If you look, somewhere around 2m each mint each year seems to be the bag/roll sales. Thus 2022's 9.7m is likely indicative of deliveries to the fed.

 

Pretty simple answer.
1970, 1987, 2002-2020.
Any of those found at a bank were bought from the mint.

 

I see that for 2018, nearly 11,000,000 normal quality half dollars were made, but only something like 2,650,000 were ordered from the Mint, across all products. Doesn't that mean the Fed had to order all that excess for general circulation? There's no good reason they would make so many otherwise. As such, it seems 2018 shouldn't be considered an NIFC year.

 

Yep

 

For 2015, there's about a million coin difference between numismatic sales and circulation mintage. Why would that be if it's considered NIFC? Or why were so many extra coins minted?

 

There's definitely a lot more to it than that. For example, halves from 2018 exist that were rolled by a common third party company used for circulating coins.

 

There's definitely a lot more to it than the article suggests. For example, halves from 2018 exist that were rolled by a common third party company used for circulating coins.

 

The Fed is much more transparent about currency orders. All they say for coins is that they provide the mint with current month orders and a rolling 12-month forecast. I can't find that it's been published.

 

They're not minuted on demand. They mint what they think will sell. Perhaps sometimes they don't sell. I don't know what they do with unsold NIFC halves, but it doesn't mean they were minted with Intent to Circulate.

 

The mint keeps them in the vaults and would use them to fulfill Fed orders before scheduling additional press runs.

It might not have been shipped out in 2018, but could have been diatributed for the 2020 or 2021 orders.

The only coin data the Fed has published is the gradual drawdown of the billion dollar coin inventory.

 

There are secured warehouses across cities in the US that these are stored. There are many more than many ballistic bags stored of just presidential dollars, SAC and innovation dollars. Think about what other denominations are stored next to them.

 

I saw that movie and TV show... don't they have the Ark of the Covenant stored next to some bones from the Roswell aliens???

(Raiders of the Lost Ark and Warehouse 13 [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1132290/] for those missing the references)

 

That was a great flick.

 

The unaccounted for 2018 Kennedy Half Dollars are rumored to be in the Ark of the Covenant.

 

Thank you for looking and the information!! I think I understand it a bit more now.

 

So they make sort of an estimate and mint those but are prepared to mint more if need be? And the excess goes to vaults for possible future needs.

 

Yes. They have the Fed's rolling 12 m forecast. They have the numismatic estimates.

From that they schedule production of dies, production of planchets, and schedule press time. Also packaging and distribution.