Is the Kennedy half dollar long in the tooth and should we replace it with something new, what would you replace it with ?
They stopped making them for circulation 17 years ago. No need to replace something that has no function.
I read your title quickly and thought you might have found a Kennedy “long tooth” variety. I would say it’s time for a change. TC
I agree. As a circulating coin, the half dollar is dead, and the Kennedy coin killed it. When I was kid, I used to get half dollars in circulation. The fact that many “junk silver” coins are circulated shows this is true.
No, It should not be replaced. But it is still a money maker for the Mint and helps to offset the cost of making cents and nickels.
As @Michael K says, the JFK halves are no more than commemorative strikes anymore. And yes the mint has overdone commemorative strikes to death..... Only thing for me is that I feel the JFK half design is still striking after all these years. I would hate to see it go away entirely in these days of one unappealing coin design after another.
I dunno. The Kennedy sentiment was one nearly-mortal blow, but the shift to clad composition (delayed for halves) was perhaps equally to blame. By the time people got tired of hoarding silver coins, and additionally hoarding the ones commemorating a beloved (widely) and martyred (kinda) President, they were just plain out of the habit of spending halves. I think if the Kennedy design had not coincided with the end of silver coinage, the Franklins and Walkers would have continued to circulate, and eventually the Kennedys would have joined them. But we'll never know for sure.
Wrong! The Kennedy half dollar did not kill the denomination. It was the vending machine industry because it cost more to produce the machines that would take a half dollar. Chris
Not true. The quarter killed the half dollar. It's generally more useful, and two quarters weigh 10% less than a half dollar does. Besides, there isn't really a convenient place to put them in most change drawers. Edit: Whoops, I looked at clad quarter weights vs silver halves. 2 clad quarters weigh the same as one clad Kennedy.
As a young man, I received many half dollars in payment on my paper route. The half dollar was alive and well back in the mid-sixties.......then the goobers removed the silver from coins.......that heralded the exit of the half dollar.
Silver dime: 2.5g Silver quarter: 6.25g Silver half: 12.5g $1.00 FV worth of the above: 25g Silver dollar: 26.73g
Again, I think it was both the Kennedy design change and the composition change that knocked out the half. If either of those hadn't happened, I think halves would've circulated a lot longer.
