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Message:: [QUOTE="Kasia, post: 8654854, member: 31533"]Well, I did it and it was pretty well received. I was nervous and did not time me, but I think perhaps I took 15 or so minutes. There were some questions after that so that was good. I also found out that although the 2018 P and D ones are not really for circulation, many people have found those in rolls of them in boxes so there is some information that they were released, and that the mintage of those were considerably more than the previous years of NIFC ones. And I did gloss over the books portion so that went really quickly. Here it is: (warning.... it is long). I did try to simply talk about the three points I mentioned first. ______ Now let’s talk about the Kennedy Half Dollar – Why did we get it, how collectable is it, why have we not had the design change in 50 years, and so on. The Kennedy Half Dollar is unique in many ways in coinage decisions. The U.S. was, in the 1930s and 1940s, starting to change the monetary designs on hard currency, i.e., going from the Buffalo design of the nickel to Presidential Jefferson, with a head for the obverse, going from Winged Liberty on the dimes (what people call a Mercury) to Roosevelt, again, to honor a President, and going from Standing Liberty to Washington (President) in 1932. By 1947, just over a year past the end of WWII, only one coin that was in the penny/nickel/dime/quarter/half (coins that break a dollar bill) category was still in an older and seemingly ‘outdated’ design.  Times were changing and the powers that be decided our coins should be changing, and reflecting Presidents who were important (and dead). The previous year was the first time that a coin honored a popular and recently deceased President, that being Roosevelt in 1946. Perhaps in retrospect, this honoring of Roosevelt in this way was what set the standard for the Half Dollar as being available to change if another popular president died in office and has even led to the Presidential Dollar series. Most people did not necessarily think it important to honor recent or modern presidents on our coins. The U.S. seems to always had gravitated to much older Presidents on the coins. Lincoln in 1909 started this. Then Washington and Jefferson in the thirties. And they are seeming to stick to the series they are on rather than choosing a new direction in basic coinage designs. We still have Lincoln cents, Jefferson Nickels, and Washington Quarters. There seems to be no desire to change away from this at all. Even the Roosevelt Dime is soldiering on, although I think it now debatable whether he should have been put in with the likes of our founding fathers, etc. In any case, by 1947, four of the six basic US Coins valued at one dollar or less were now presidential portraitures and one, the silver dollar had been discontinued (in 1935), because of a lack of demand for them in society relevant to the supply that was available. This left only one coin, the half dollar to remain and possibly the only thing that saved this one from being another President. And based on the 1948 Schlesinger Poll rating presidents by their greatness (this is the closest I could get to the 1947 time period to make a decent guess), the only two ‘great’ presidents not already on a coin would have been Wilson (yeah, the guy going into WWI)) and Jackson. So that leads me to believe that had not circumstances with one person at the mint at one time, we would not have had a Franklin half dollar, and that possibly by 1950, we would have had a Wilson or Jackson Half Dollar. This leads to speculation that if we had a Wilson or Jackson Half Dollar by 1950, when Kennedy died, would that have been pre-empted by Kennedy or would the event have triggered a Kennedy Dollar coin and thus, left out Eisenhower, Sacajawea, and the current Presidential procession? Interesting to think of. So, the one person standing in the way of the half dollar going from the Liberty Walking design to a President of Greatness was one person…. Nellie Tayloe Ross. Nellie Ross was quite a person. She was the first female governor of a state (Wyoming, 1935-1927) and was the first female director of the United States Mint. As director of the Mint, she served from 1933-1953, which encompassed much of the changes in circulation type coinage that I have described… the loss of Silver Dollars being minted, the entry of Roosevelt (no surprise in a way, not only was he rated as a great president, but he appointed her to the directorship of the mint) and Jefferson on the dime and nickel, and then….. she was the person who was behind the change to Franklin. She probably solely decided that it was time for Franklin to be honored with a coin. She greatly admired him as the statesman he was historically and it was her desire for him to be on a coin, and as mint director, she had the ability to put forth her wants. So, Franklin came about in 1948, and she could have had the idea that the public would just get used to it, like it or not, that coin designs really didn’t matter much to the public. (ref: The Story of the New Benjamin Half -Dollar <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/sdfe/pdf/download/eid/1-s2.0-0016003248901513/first-page-pdf" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/sdfe/pdf/download/eid/1-s2.0-0016003248901513/first-page-pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.sciencedirect.com/sdfe/pdf/download/eid/1-s2.0-0016003248901513/first-page-pdf</a>) where it states from a speech she gave in April, 1948, “In a recent radio talk I ventured to suggest this idea, in connection with the new Franklin piece, saying in effect, that when a coin is once released for circulation the public must accept it --- like it or not!” So that was Nellie Tayloe Ross, the direction she was taking the mint, and her disregard for what the public might want, that it was pretty much irrelevant. In any regard, in hindsight, perhaps she was at that time a relic of public perceptions of history. Although Franklin was a great man, his and other historical figures from long ago were starting (along with the modern ideas, and 50’s kitchens, suburbia, the rise of Nikita Kruschev, Richard Nixon, and such) to become less important to people in their own lives. In fact, you also see the demise of frontiermen like Davy Crockett by the end of the 60s in popularity for children, so the idea of Ben Franklin being moved out of the way for Kennedy in 1964’s production of half dollars is not out of step with new modernity being in everything. So… by 1963, prior to Jack Kennedy being shot in Dallas, there were many signs that coinage was ripe for either discontinuing more denominations or that we needed another President on a coin. Half Dollars still circulated, but were not as popular as before for regular usage and becoming less so, with machines taking quarters over the heavier and larger halves. But then Kennedy, a very popular president, was assassinated and the country immediately went into mourning along with shock. A coin honoring him was authorized just a month over his death and supposedly was Jackie Kennedy’s decision, though I don’t know how much pressure she had to make it that as the most fitting coin was one where her husband did not replace another important President on a coin, and the only one that fit that bill was the half dollar with the only non-presidential person on it. At first the issue was in Silver, being 1964, and was very popularly collected and saved as a memento by people mourning the loss of that President. So the first year did not see much in circulation. Then a decision was made that for 1965 coins, silver was out completely for circulation bound dimes and quarters and the silver content in halves were reduced to 40% from the 90% they were in 1964. This also coincided with the mint producing from 1965-1967 coins without mint marks, so as to discourage collecting and hoarding of the US coins (the mint was blaming collectors) as well as continuing 1964 dated coins well into 1965. But by the late 60s (a lot of this is based on my own recollections of that time) and into the early 1970s, half dollars were found less and less in ordinary circulation. Prices were increasing in society and having a half dollar coin to spend for something became extraneous when you had a couple of quarters that did that. There still were plenty in circulation, enough that when the coins did enter circulation, they got wear and did not remain all in pristine condition, but there were less reasons to be using them. Credit cards had actually started, people were writing checks for many purchases, and savings accounts were lowering their rates. By the early to mid-70s, many people preferred to never have a half dollar if possible. It's use has declined since then also and I have found that in putting some of my CRH halves back into circulation after searching them, that it is amazing the people who have never seen one, and some who don’t even know what it is, much less the coin machines at stores that are programmed to be able to take the small dollars but don’t take the halves. Many of the Kennedy Half Dollars are ones that are NIFC (not intended for circulation). The first was the 1970 D, which was only for collectors and was the last of the 40% silver content ones. These business strike coins are a key coin and many are graded, but were not struck so high as to have many gem-quality ones. Most are graded at 65 or below, and none have been graded at MS68 or higher. After that one, the next NIFC one was 1987 and then regularly every year since between 2002 and 2021. Like the 1970 D, he 1987 (P and D) do not generally grade high. There is only one PCGS graded MS68 for the Philadelphia mint and six of the Denver mint. The 2022 circulation quality (business strikes) ones so far have about a mintage of 9.7 coins, basically about half and half between Philadelphia and Denver. Part of the 2021 and 2022 half dollars struck as business strikes (i.e., not proof) were shipped for release into circulation. The 2021s were the first placed into circulation since 2001. How collectable is the Kennedy Half Dollar? There are many people who do like to collect this coin, but some are only interested in the silver content ones. The design is pleasant to look at, as his profile is well done and characterizes his youthfulness. The reverse is what we might consider a standard, neither super nice nor appealing but not disagreeable either. It fits the coin well proportionally, so it doesn’t seem heavy or non-compatible with the obverse design. Both sides of the coin work with each other in proportionality and aesthetics. I don’t encounter a lot of collectors of this coin and in some coin shows, the sellers don’t seem to carry a lot of them. If you do collect them, it might be challenging to get what you want because of this. But there is a lot to choose from in collecting. One could simply do every year and mintmark regardless of quality of the coin, or perhaps decide to simply collect silver content issues, or collect only business strikes that were not NIFC coins, or focus on proofs. Some people might like to work on trying to collect an error or variety focused collection. In this vein, looking for examples of double, triple, or quadruple die strikes would be a challenge. PCGS has seven different major sets for Kennedy Half Dollars and of these, the one that seems to be most popular (using number of sets in the category as the measuring tool) is the Kennedy Half Dollars Basic Set, Proof (1964-present) and it also has fourteen Specialty Sets listed, of which the Kennedy Half Dollars Silver Short set with Accent Hair Proof (1964-1970) is most popular and the Kennedy Half Dollars Basic Silver Set, Proof (1964, 1992-Present) comes in a close second. I won’t really go into the doubled dies, etc. but would like to mention the Accented Hair one. This is only on a proof coin and basically it is simply a that some of the proof coins were minted with a die that had extra detail on the hairs above Kennedy’s ears. It is supposed that these were the first ones minted (maybe between 40 thousand and 120 thousand coins) in early January 1964 but that the mint revised the coin to not be so heavy with hair in that one area because Jackie Kennedy thought it overemphasized in that part and wanted things more ‘mussed up’ to be more, so the design was revised and that is the one that the majority of 1964 proofs are. Why has there been no design change in the past 50 years? Well, this is speculatory on my part, but I think it is a combination that the coin is not used all that much, the changes that the public have had put on them on coins has (aside from the bicentennial issues) has been mostly done on the dollar coins, and that (and the fact that for 20 years, this coin has been NIFC for its minting of the business strikes) really not needed to replace what has been in circulation from minting in the 70’s through 90s (and these can be verified as being the most common as that is what you generally find in boxes from banks now). People have had their say over the Ikes, Susan B.’s, Sacajaweas, and Presidential ones. The half dollar is now in many ways in the mainstay with someone depicted that people could agree is still warranted. He is one of the more popularly rated presidents and no-one is needing to say we need a new design to replace him. Maybe the regular population really does not care who is on a coin so much as can they spend it and is it recognizable. The quarter program and the changes in the smaller denominations have fostered a lot of collecting interest in coins and maybe there simply is enough in other avenues for the mint to interest collectors that no-one there is saying, lets mess with the half. By the fact that we now have the Lincoln cent going on (next year) 114 years with only a few changes and special temporary changes, and the Washington Quarter still (though with different way of presenting Washington and modifying the reverses) now for 90 years says that the U.S. sees no need to be going away from a design that seems to work for the population. I have also brought a few coins as examples: One is a small book of coins (mostly) from my culling these from CRH boxes of halves and is showcasing the silver 1960s issues. A second one is the 50th anniversary issue special uncirculated P & D Coin Set in a coin card and folder, and the third and fourth are graded coins. One is a 1976-S Silver and the other is a 1964 Accented Hair Proof. Hopefully you have enjoyed learning a bit about the Kennedy Half, its history, and collectability, and also how books you have can be used to know more about them.[/QUOTE]

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