Strange fifty cent piece

I found this fifty cent piece, which is at very least, odd. It has what appears to be a gold or brass tint to its metallic reflective quallity. The coin itself is stamped, 1984. The real abnormality, is that it has two year dates, actually pressed into the coin on the left and right sides of the press year date on the head side of the coin. The year on the left is (I believe) either 1950 or 1960, and clearly, the year on the right hand side is 1980. I haven't had any luck finding anything about this coin, and my residential location resticts me from accessing a large market, beside the internet. Any information about this coin would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Logie

 

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The coin has been altered after it left the mint by some private individual or company. It was obviously meant to commemorate some event for a particular person or group. It has no numismatic value.

 

Well, that is the easy answer. It is not the complete answer. Have you never heard of the Waterford Water Cure by Q. David Bowers? Overstruck coins are an interesting area of numismatics and I am pretty happy with my couple of mysterious examples.

I agree that it is not a U.S. Mint item. I agree that it is an ad hoc, private commemorative. It still has numismatic value.

(... that is a pretty strange attitude for someone whose username is CONDER101. "It is not a U.S. Mint product and has no numismatic value." I'll remember that. It's a great line.)

 

Yeah, you could split hairs here but essentially CONDER is right. One man's trash in another man's treasure.

 

Splitting hair symantics aside.....can you post a picture of the coin?

 

I got one of those too, maybe 8 months ago when I was roll searching. The coin was a 1984-P. It had the date "1960" stamped/pressed into the obverse in front of Kennedy's throat, and the date "1980" stamped behind his neck. The dates were aligned and centered. The coin was polished also. Whoever altered the coin spent some time doing it, and it looked to me like they really cared about the finished product. It wasn't done by some kid with a hammer and a set of stamps. The coin sat on my I-found-this-in-a-roll-of-Kennedys shelf for about 4 months before I started running out of room. I thought about keeping it for good but ended up returning it to circulation. Sorry, I didn't take a picture.

 

Can either of you post a picture to satisfy our curiousity?

 

I didn't take a picture before I returned it to the bank. I, like Conder101, believed it had no numismatic value. I decided that it was merely a curiosity that turned up by chance. Maybe I should have kept it? I'm not sure.

At about the same time I found something that interested me a bit more, a 1983 Kennedy (P? will have to double check) that looked as if it had been made of gold or was gold plated. Again, this wasn't done by an amateur. The finish is, for all intents and purposes, uniform and flawless. I kept that one, but couldn't find any information on it. I posted the details on another Web forum and got little in the way of feedback. I thought it might have been something different/special because of the date too: 1983, the 20 year anniversary of the Kennedy assassination.

logiebear: Are the dates that are stamped/pressed into the Kennedy done in block-looking numbers, about 1/8" high, and each date measuring about 5/16" long? If so it sounds like we got the same thing.

 

What you have is a gold-plated commerative Kennedy Half. The link below may satisfy your curiosity

http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q...hl=en&lr=&safe=active&sa=N&tab=ff&oi=froogler

 

Cool link, jimmy-bones, thank you.

The date stamping/pressing on that coin looks like what I had on the 1984. However, the 1983 I have has no such dates. It is gold/gold plated, but other than that it looks like a normal 1983 Kennedy half.

 

I've seen this one before and at one time knew what it was for. It might have
been done by an oil company but I remember no details.

 

Well, I was mistaken. I still had that 1984-P! I guess I was thinking of another coin. Anyway, here are some pictures. Sorry they are so dark. The coin is actually quite shiny, almost proof like:

 

Also.....

Here are two pictures of that gold 1983 I found. It was actually a "D."



Any thoughts?

 

< (... that is a pretty strange attitude for someone whose username is CONDER101. "It is not a U.S. Mint product and has no numismatic value." I'll remember that. It's a great line.) >
Now I never said it wasn't a mint product. And yes I've heard of the Waterford Cure. A counterstamped coin that can't be linked to a specific event, person, purpose etc is just a mutilated coin because any fool can get a punch and beat on a coin. Once the counterstamp can be identified to a purpose, then yes it does have numismatic value, possibly a lot of value. (And please don't get the idea that I think something has to be from the US Mint, or even any government mint, to have numismatic value. In fact some of my greatest interests are for items that do NOT come from government mints.)

 

Biggy, I just found one like that golden 1983-D last night. It's a 1991-D. A weird looking half. I have never seen anything like it until I saw your post. Let me know if you know, or find out, whether it has any extra value.

Thanks! Willie (The Ghost of)

 

WillieSutton,

I believe a lot of people think we are simply talking about a toned coin when they first read our posts. It is a valid assumption but obviously not applicable in this case.

The closest I've come to finding any kind of information at a couple of forums was by viewing the link provided by jimmy-bones in this thread. The auction description says they are commemorative coins from an estate sale, but it doesn't give any other information. Commemorative of what? Who plated them? The really odd thing is that I've got the polished one with the stamped dates and the gold one with nothing else done to it. I doubt they are worth much more than face, $2 or $3 tops, but I'm hanging onto them just in case. They were neat to find while roll searching.

Can you post a picture of the one you found?

 

Mr. Big,

Need to get a camera. Haven't had one since my old Nikon F turned obsolete quite a few years ago.

You nailed it though. My coin looks exactly like yours. It looks professionally done. Golden.

Willie

 

I have a dozen or so that I got on ebay for $2 or less each, I collect counterstamped coins so I bought them. I might have one in the original packaging, not sure.

In any case, how about remembering our history lessons, people?!?! Let's see, a JFK halk with a 1960 date on it......hmmmm.....what year did JFK get elected? Oh, yeah, 1960.

As for 1980, it was a 20th anniversay commem. I also have one with the second date being 1985, making it a 25th anniv commem.

Mine are gold plated, but not sure if they came other ways also. On ebay, most are gold colored, and most do not come in any packaging. Not sure if they were dumped into circulation, or were sold that way originally.

 

Plated coins rarely carry any extra value. The gold layer is so thin that even it doesn't add any value to the coin.

Hmmmm...1980, 1984. Inaugural years of President Reagans two terms? Beyond that, I'm out of guesses.

 

In post #8 of this thread I stated why I thought my 1983 Kennedy was gold plated- the 20 year "anniversary" (though I hate that word in this case) of the Kennedy assassination. OK, maybe, but why are the dates 1960 and 1980 stamped into a 1984? Yeah, one could make the case that they represent the year Kennedy was elected and the 20th anniversary of his election, but that doesn't explain why a 1984 half was chosen. Perhaps it was picked because it represented the 20th year of production of the Kennedy half? You could drive yourself crazy analyzing the symbolism in all of this.