Is It Time To Change The Half Dollar Design?

I am n

I am neither too proud or rich to not stop and pick them up now. I don't throw trash on the sidewalk, much less anything with value.

 

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Yes neither am I but there are those who do...I see it daily.
Here's something easy to observe go into a retail food store as I do daily to service my accounts.
A few of the larger chains have a Starsbucks coffee shop.....have a seat and watch... out of the customers how many pay with either a credit card, a debit card, use a phone app. Compared to those who use cash. I say what I have seen over 90 % use some sort of credit or card, the 10 or less percent whom do pay with cash if they recieve any change being coin will dump it in the tip jar.
Men for tbe most part don't want it in their pockets,women no longer carry change purses.
True most will pocket or put away folding money ,as for coins most aren't interested in carrying it with them.
I don't believe in what is left of my life we will be a cashless society, however I do believe we are headed there no matter what..... As a collector do I wish to see this happen heck no.....but I assure you what I have witnessed over the 60 plus years we are going away from cash be it coin or notes more so every decade.

 

Our thoughts and observations are the same. I do believe that as long as there are exorbitant taxes, there will always be a need of cash for barter. If a cashless society comes about, it will (have to) be forced by the government.

 

Again, a few years ago when I was commuting on my bike, I think I noticed more nickels than cents lying in the road. Certainly by value, if not by count.

When the half-cent was discontinued, its buying power was roughly comparable to today's dime. A tenth of a dollar is a trivial amount at this point. Track it for individual or weight/volume pricing, but settle transactions to the nearest dime.

Getting rid of the nickel won't happen, though, as long as we have quarter dollars and dimes. If it were me, I'd go to dimes and halves (resized), but it's not me.

 

Yesterday on the counter at work I found 7 brand new 2017 Cents. Some P some D. I needed them for my jar, so I grabbed them and thanked the people who like to toss them.

 

Not only is it time to change the design of the half
dollar, but the rest of the circulating coinage. For that
matter the ASE and the AGE are long over due. They
should be changed every year or two. The current
designs are boring and tiresome regarding the bullion
issues. The circulating coinage every 5 years. The recent
depictions of Lady Liberty on the precious metal rounds
sure beats most of the other recent attempts.

 

IMO it's the dime that needs a redesign.
FDR was great but let's move on.

 

I'm a big fan of the half. I use them daily in my business which is cash only. No cents, quarters or dollar notes.

The last number (1,2,3,4) are rounded. Dimes and nickels are used instead of quarters and halves are used for change greater than .50. Dollar coins and dueces instead of ones.

I realize I'm in the minority. Now....let me have it!!!

 

P.S. my customer's love them.

 

Bravo @Bill H.

 

I would have no problem with that, the problem is the difficulty of actually removing one that is very popular once their time is up. That's one of the reasons we still have out dead presidents. No one wants to go on record as being the person that tried to remove Lincoln, or Washington, Jefferson or Roosevelt from the coins. You could probably get away with removing Kennedy because the coin doesn't circulate and people wouldn't notice.

Make it every five years. It takes a LONG time to do the steel plate engraving for intaglio printing. A master engraver can spend a year just perfecting one portrait.

By my estimates closer to todays quarter. Which makes it even worse. We insist on keeping a coin worth 1/25th what the half cent was worth when it was discontinued for being too small an amount to be worthwhile.

 

If the change is mandatory, people would have less resistance. In fact, I would say that if the change is legislated as a remedy to our "stagnant" coinage, we would probably get past removing George and Abe without too much blow back.

 

Redesigns would have been an easy solution but that just made the nickel and cent worse.

 

Until you actually reached the time when they are to be removed. Then complaints start and the law get changed to either allow them to stay or just get an extention which will then continue to be extended.

And you still have to get the initial legislation passed and someone is going to realize it will remove the current presidents and complaints will start. Best way to try and get around that is to quietly include it as an unrelated section in another bill and hope it doesn't get noticed.

 

I agree, but I also think about this: when the Jefferson Nickel was redesigned, there was a piece of legislation that madated that Jefferson be kept on the nickel in perpetuity. It upset me that they would try to hijack the coin, but then I realized that in order to change the mandate, it would require legislation. It would also require legislation for a new design, so in actuality, all they did with the original law was to make sure that the Treasury Secretary couldn't change the design (as is their prerogative to do after a 25 year run), that it would only be done through new law.

 

I'll stop and pick up a penny (cent), whether it's facing the right way or not. I look at it as getting paid to do exercise.

 

Yes, get rid the half, or downsize and redesign it. Get rid of the cent too. Waste of money. But what we want doesn't matter. Congress would have to do something about it, and let's face it, they are incapable of agreeing to most everything.

 

Is that a guess

 

Now your upsetting me

 

I would miss ABE