Kennedy Halves Nearing The End??

I seen a number of eBay auctions claiming that the Kennedy half series is nearing the end. Is there any truth to this or is this some misleading sales pitch? Here is one such auction that mentions this.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=41104&item=3946403181&rd=1

David

 

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I am not aware of any plans, by the Mint, to discontinue issuing the Kennedy half dollar.

The 2005 issues will be available to collectors, in bags and rolls, on Jan. 24th.

 

I have not heard anything about the end of the Kennedy halves, even though it wouldnt bother me much, as for the value increasing even if they did end the production maybe some of the very high end coins may increase , but coins of the grade shown in the pictures will not .

 

The current law on the Half Dollar extends to 2008. They are required to produce them until that date. There are rumors reported in CoinWorld about a circulating commem half being produced.

 

I never see these coins being used in circulation, yet every time I come across one it's in horrible shape!

 

You are exactly right! I have noticed 2000 dates halves that look terrible! These coins aren't circulated that much and yet they look so bad. The half dollar doesn't really have any purpose other than for collecting purposes it would seem. I'd like to see the half become mainstream like the smaller denominations.

David

 

Also forgot to mention those eBay auctions shouldn't be saying things in their listings about the nearing demise of this coin unless they have facts to back it up. I think its a tactic to create a buzz so they can worry collectors to get a few more sales.

David

 

If you, and a few million of your closest friends, would join me in getting them from the bank and using them for purchases, it could happen.

 

I use them all the time. After I get a few rolls at the bank I spend the ones that are not worth keeping. i.e. silver, proofs, 78-D is very hard to find around here, holed, solid date unc rolls, etc.

They are heavily used in casinos though. Thats where a lot of the bad conditioned ones come from.

 

The last time I tried to use one was at the supermarket and the cashier looked at it and asked me what it was. Scary, isn't it?

 

More than once I've been asked if they are dollars. I have always (so far) told them they are halves. For real fun, go to McDonalds and pay with a Kennedy half, a SBA dollar, a Sacagawea dollar, an Eisenhower dollar, and a two dollar bill. They will look at you like your from outer space.

 

HAHAHA!!!! I have had some cashiers question me about the golden dollar since they didn't know what it was! Can you beleive it?! But I think we should all get some of these coins and start using them. Who know, maybe they'll catch on!

David

 

Actually, here in Nevada the 50-cent piece plays an important part at the Blackjack Table. If I bet $5 and get a blackjack they give me $7.50 back. There aren't any 50-cent tokens (as far as I've seen) so they use Kennedy Halves. I am always on the lookout for Franklins or the Kennedy's with silver. Hmmm, maybe I can use that excuse to the wife so I can play more. I use to play blackjack (in the 70's) with real silver dollars.

 

I wasn't referring to the design of the half dollar. Public law 83 requires the mint to produce half dollars until 2008. It does not require any specific design.
Apearantly the Mint was considering dropping the Half in 2000 due to heavy reserves.

 

It's really interesting. The half used to be a workhorse of the economy; a century ago they were to commerce roughly what the $20 bill is to us today. Even up to the days of the Franklin half, it was commonly circulated.

Based on what I've read on the issue, perhaps the initial "popularity" of the Kennedy half *and* the decision to keep minting 40% silver halves after 1964 may have contributed to the decline and fall of the half dollar in commerce.

It's known that many folks hoarded JFK halves...essentially loving them "too much" and not spending them. The sudden enormous spike in half dollar production in 1964 -- FAR more coins than commerce needed -- attests to that. The public wanted these coins...to hoard and keep, not to spend.

Also, once lower denominations were fully debased starting in 1965/66 (and starting with 1965-dated coins, much to my chagrin as all my siblings got silver "birth year sets" and I got clad), Gresham's Law (stating that "bad money" drives out "good money" in commerce and has been true for centuries) kicked in. People saved the coins with silver content and spent the debased coins with very little intrinsic value. The government, recognizing this, decided to counter this by fully debasing the half in 1971.

But by this time, the half dollar had been largely absent from commerce long enough that even the debasement of the half and the saturation of JFK pieces in commercial channels wasn't enough to get people used to spending them. It was long enough that merchants no longer really had a place for halves in their registers.

Perhaps had they stuck with making Franklins and fully debased the half along with the dime and quarter, the half would be circulating more today. Speculation, of course, but still...

 

That's a very interesting viewpoint, Ziggy, and it makes a lot of sense. Good thinking.

 

Thanks. It's something I've often thought about. I mean, you see enough well-work Walkers and VF early Franklins that you can tell these coins were used and used with some frequency. Somewhere along the line, we just stopped using the half dollar, deciding instead to rely on paper money and the quarter.

Silver dollar-sized coins, on the other hand, were never really popular except where other money wasn't readily available (particularly the West, as is the case with a fair number of Carson City dollars). And even that "popularity," such as it was, died by the early 20th century as more coinage (and paper money) of other denominations made its way out west and the frontier was "closed."

 

The introduction of the Kennedy certainly hurt half dollar circulation but the increased use of vending machines had already begun hurting it more. Prices were escalating and machine items were sometimes more than a quarter in the early '60's and few machines accepted anything larger than a quarter. Half dollars had never really had the same amont of usage as the other coins which you can see from the mintages. All else being equal the mintage of half dollars should be at least about half of quarter production if there were as large a chance of getting a half in change as there was two quarters. Usually if your change was $.50 you'd get two quarters. The halfs in circulation did have good velocity but it was not as high as quarters at least by the early '60's.

Half dollar usage did drop off rapidly in '65 and were not often used after '68 when the 90% issues were removed. There's little doubt that the introduction of the Kennedy hastened the demise of the half in commerce. These were still seen on rare occasion right through the '70's but very little since. Rolls of Kennedys from the bank will show nice even but light wear on the early clad issues, and highly variable amounts of wear on the later issues with most being very unattractive from slot machine usage.