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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;fusiafinch, post: 1755276, member: 18382&quot;]I think the Kennedy half is a beautiful coin. Also, people don&#039;t choose to use a coin or not based on quality of artistic design alone. There&#039;s many reasons that added up such that the half dollar does not circulate today. It started in 1964.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>1) So many people hoarded the first Kennedy half that even though hundreds of millions were minted, it was still not enough to meet initial demand. But this demand was not for use as a coin, but to keep as a memento of the slain President.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>2) Beginning in 1965 silver was removed from circulating coins and replaced with non-silver clad coins. The Mint was under pressure to crank these clad coins out because people were hoarding the silver and ultimately resulted in a coin shortage. But the Mint kept 40% silver in the Kennedy half. Why? The Mint director must have known that any silver would be hoarded and not circulated. And that&#039;s what happened. Once the initial frenzy about the Kennedy half subsided, the half still did not circulate because it was the only coin to contain silver and so people still hoarded the silver. I can&#039;t believe the Mint would be so dumb as to not notice this, so I think there is another reason. And that reason is that the Mint simply did not have the machinery necessary to strike a non-silver clad half. Striking a half made of copper-nickel required far more pressure than the quarter since the half is a larger coin, and the Mint simply did not have the capacity to do it. So rather than completely discontinue the half only a year after it started, they continued to use 40% silver so that they could fully strike the coin on machinery they had. It wasn&#039;t until 1971 that the Mint had the ability to strike large Cu-Ni coins, like the Ike dollar and clad Kennedy half. So silver was finally taken out of the half in 1971.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>3) People got used to using the quarter instead of the half. The result of both (1) and (2) above was that people used quarters as the workhorse of circulation and the half gradually fell out of favor. Look at the mintages from 1965 to 1969. Fewer halves were being minted because they were no longer needed. In 1970, you could only get them in mint sets. So by 1971, when clad halves finally became available, people were simply used to quarters. Once the public gets out of the habit of something, it&#039;s hard to go back. Quarters have been in dominant use instead.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>So why do they keep making the half? It seems to be a money maker for the mint, as least as special collectibles. No longer made for circulation, the half has become a permanent commemorative coin, it seems.&nbsp; The Mint offers special silver proofs and will even issue a special set for 2014, all with popular demand. So many people do like the coin, but not as a circulating coin.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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