Message:

<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Michael K, post: 2848220, member: 78298&quot;]To answer Mike Noodle (and there is nothing political in this discussion)</p><p>Here are some of the posts I read yesterday:</p><p><br /></p><p>Half dollars circulated very freely until the introduction of the Kennedy half in 1964. After that they just stopped being used in regular commerce. There are several reasons why this happened. First, the increasing value of silver at the time caused the silver coins to be hoarded for their silver content. Half dollars were prime targets for this hoarding because they were the largest regular circulation coin at the time (Silver Dollars did not circulate to any extent). Second, the hoarding of the Kennedy halves took place on a massive scale. Essentially, they never did circulate, they were just hoarded.</p><p><br /></p><p>Half dollars are heavy and useless today. Most people don&#039;t carry any money any more.</p><p>Vending machines did not accept half dollars.</p><p>I think the decline of use of the half dollar coincided with the change over to clad.</p><p>A hefty silver half transformed into a big hunk of nothing.</p><p>The Kennedy half was in such great demand as a souvenir that it wasn&#039;t seen in circulation for a number of years. As a result, when the Kennedy half did return to circulation, most people had forgotten the denomination and those who did couldn&#039;t use them in vending machines, at which point the denomination pretty much stopped being used, except in some slot machines.</p><p>When the silver was removed from the dime and quarter, the half still had 40% silver, so a lot of people saved the halves.</p><p><br /></p><p>They freely circulated in the 1950s. They stopped in 1964....everyone hoarded the &quot;new&quot; Kennedy halfs as they were felt to be collector items or momentos to our beloved recently slain president. Then with the switch to clad in 1965 everyone started hoarding all silver coins. They never caught on again after 1965 .</p><p>When I was child and in my early teens, I used to get half dollars in change. It didn&#039;t happen a lot, but most all of the coins I did get were worn down to Fine or VF. I can&#039;t remember ever getting a Mint State half dollar in circulation. Sometimes I would get a well worn Walker, but that was unusual.</p><p>The Kennedy half dollar changed everything for the 50 cent piece. People hoarded them as souvenirs and did not spend them. Just at the time when the novelty with the Kennedy coin might have come to an end, silver prices began to be creep up to the point where the metal content of the 90% silver coins was approaching their face value. That combined with a shortage of silver resulted in the Coinage Act of 1965. That give us our current clad coinage and, for a while, the 40% silver Kennedy half dollar. Had the half dollar been made into a copper-nickel clad coin instead of a silver clad coin, the Kennedy might have returned to circulation.</p><p>In the coming years silver prices reached the point where the 40% silver half dollars were worth more than their face value. People hoarded them as well. In 1971 the Kennedy half dollar became a base metal clad coin. At that point it made no sense to hoard them, but people continued to do it. They were confused by the fact that the 1965 to 1970 coins could be melted for a profit, but the later coins could not. They hoarded everything. I can&#039;t tell you how many private hoards of coins I&#039;ve seen that had copper-nickel clad half dollars in them. People were surprised when I&#039;d tell them, &quot;Spend this in good health.&quot;</p><p>That sums up the death of the half dollar. It had nothing to do with the weight of the coin, at least not initially. The coin just couldn&#039;t get into circulation to any extent because, first, the Kennedy fascination and, second, because people were confused over its melt value.</p><p>Between the switch to clad (making coins just as worthless as paper); and inflation at it&#039;s height in the late 60&#039;s and early 70&#039;s, the weight (and size) to value ratio dropped, and make paper money replacement more feasible.</p><p>The other death knell was the rise of the general use credit card (such as BankAmericard) in the late 60&#039;s. Carrying cash in general was less popular.</p><p>I also agree with the switch to the Kennedy seemed to make it (at the time) more of a commem than a circulating coin.</p><p>Halves were heavy and a pain to carry around. I could never get them to fit in my bell-bottom jeans.</p><p>Why not use half and dollar coins now? The vending machine industry does not want to retool plus it would appear to the public an open admission that our money has declined in value. Half dollar coins are probably too bulky for our current pay by cell phone culture.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

Your name or email address:

Do you already have an account?

• No, create an account now.
• Yes, my password is:
• Forgot your password?

Stay logged in