I am curious to get everyone's thoughts on the future value of the NIFC halves. Thank you all in advance for your input, I always enjoy and appreciate the insight from the members here at CT.
It's kind of a unique situation with them. If you look at coins of the past, there was a mintage of however many, few were saved, many were used for circulation, and some were lost to extreme wear, melt for precious metal, use in jewelry, etc. As our commerce needs have changed, the half dollar has become a non-circulated denomination, much like the two dollar bill - still minted or printed, but not used in active commerce. That said, if you mint, say, 8 million 2013 half dollars, and they don't see regular circulation, in 50 years, you will still have nearly 8 million 2013 half dollars, and many of them will still be at a minimum AU if not MS grade. I can't see them ever demanding much of a premium over face value unless the Mint would recall them for alloy use or the base metal value would skyrocket in relationship to the face value of the coin (like silver and gold have done in the past).
I would save very little since most of the NIFC will be stashed away in BU/MS condition. Also because they did make a lot of them and in a standard bank box of half dollars, you encounter NIFC very very frequently, or at least for me.
Since these coins are produced by the millions, I would be very surprised if they had any significant value even 100 years from now (except maybe in MS68-MS70). Just look at the 1885-CC Morgan. It has the lowest mintage of all the CC dollars at 228,000, but since the vast majority of them were never released into circulation, their value is substantially less than the 79, 89 & 93 CC's. Chris
The value will probably never amount to much above 'face'. That said, I pick up a couple of rolls from the mint each year.
I save the ones I find in roll searching, as for value, they might be useful trading with another collector someday,
Ah ha!!! No wonder I couldn't figure it out; it doesn't stand for a particular issue. I guess it means such things as ASE's and other so-called bullion coins.
