Why were 40% halves made from 1965-70? No other denomination was made in silver at all so why the halves? And why 40%?
Straight from Wikipedia: The Coinage Act of 1965, Pub.L. 89–81, 79 Stat. 254, enacted July 23, 1965, eliminated silver from the circulating dimes and quarter dollars of the United States, and diminished the silver content of the half dollar from 90% to 40%. This act was in response to coin shortages caused by the rising price of silver in terms of a devaluing U.S. dollar. In addition to the above provisions, for which it is best known, the act: Allowed the Secretary of the Treasury to continue to strike 90% silver coins for up to five years, until the Secretary determined there was an adequate supply of clad coins. This authority was exercised, through 1966, though the coins were dated 1964. Forbade the minting of silver dollars for five years. Made all coins and currency of the United States (including certain bank issues) a legal tender. This has been taken to reverse the 1876 demonitization of the Trade Dollar. Gave the Secretary broad discretion to enter into contracts to assure an adequate supply of clad coins, without regard to public procurement laws. Established a Joint Commission to make recommendations regarding coin and currency.
In the early 60's, it was said that silver was in short supply. So they stopped using silver in the dimes and quarters. When the Kennedy Half was created in 1964, the general public loved the coin for two reasons. Those being the fact that President Kennedy was on it and the fact that it was 90% silver. So it was being hoarded. The government wanted the half to circulate but the hoarding prevented that. So they came up with the idea of reducing the silver content to 40% thinking that would decrease the hoarding and promote the coin to circulate. That didn't work.
1965 to 1969 really... As the '70d was a Mint Set only issue. The Kennedy coin was very important for the time considering in 1965 it had been less than 2 years since JFK was assassinated. Moving 90% to 40% was certainly within the threshold of being below face value for a 50c piece. Original copper/nickel clad coinage from 1965 had issues with QC, and I believe Congress wanted the Kennedy half series to be of importance in the QC department. Also, by moving to 40%, it would ensure that the coins would actually still circulate as intended and not be picked off by our grandfathers for hoarding/flipping. In the end, I feel that because JFK was loved and missed and it was so close to him being murdered, the coin was still made in silver in his honor. Im probably wrong, but its the Internet man and plus I've had a couple Adult drinks
Neither of those answers really answer my question. Why was only the half reduced to 40% and not all coins? Or why wasn't the half made completely of non silver like the other coins.
In reality had the press media not had a "hands off" approach to presidents back then - Kennedy wouldn't have been placed on a half dollar and the half dollar would still be a circulating coin. An assassin killed Kennedy, and Kennedy killed the half dollar because everybody kept them, even the 40% coins, as keepsakes. Now had the media reported on all of his life's little adventures his popularity would have plummeted and there would have been no Kennedy half.
Most folks don't realize this, but 1964 silver coins (dimes and quarters, anyway) were minted as late as April 1966...to create the "appearance" that these coins weren't being hoarded. I think that may be the reason for the 40% halves...to keep "some" silver available to dampen the coin hoarding frenzy. Mint marks were removed from coins from 1965-1968 to further reduce hoarding (based on mint marks). The Mint even created silver Peace dollars at the Denver Mint (dated 1964)...only to change their minds and destroy all they made (presumably).
The retention of 40% silver in half dollars may very well have been due to political pressure applied by the silver producing states in that they did not want to see a greater hit on their economies.
There is rumoured to be one in the LBJ Library. I would say that is the best chance for the coin actually still existing.
I don't believe that to be necessarily true... I think the popularity of certain presidents are "locked-in" despite their personal misadventures.
If that rumor is true and the LBJ Presidential library is a part of the National Archives and Records Administration, then I'd suppose that coin can be considered legitimately in the possession of the Federal government. It would be nice (if they have one) if they'd loan it to the Smithsonian's numismatic exhibition in DC for viewing, or share it publicly the way other novelty rarities from the Treasury make the rounds at coin shows. I would imagine no individuals nor other groups in the private sector would ever step forward to show proof of possessing such a coin after the Langbord case, for any amount of money. Not sure if a Federal entity like the National Archives is legally eligible or not, but if they have one of these coins, there's $10k in PCGS prize money out there waiting to be claimed.
"Even bad news is good news." So the saying goes... The history of the US and the existence of the free press and profitable political journalism has succeeded in selling stories about politicians' reputations and misadventures from the Colonial period onward. Hamilton founded the NY Post, still in operation today, found his way onto various $10 notes and was even shot and killed in political life, similar to Lincoln and McKinley who died from assassin and who would later be memorialized for deeds in their Presidencies as well as their lives given in service. No matter how good or bad, popular or unpopular the Presidents were in their lifetimes, the majority of them will now end up on golden dollars.
TomB has part of the answer. In the early 60's silver rose in price to the point where the value of the metal in the coins threatened to rise enough to exceed the face value and it was feared that this would lead to hoarding. Not a good thing when the country was already in the midst of a coin shortage. So the mint looked for a replacement for the silver. The answer they came up with was the coppernickel clad copper that we are familiar with today. The problem was the western silver mining states did not want to cut the silver from the coins and lose that market, so they threatened to kill the clad coinage part of the coinage act. So in exchange for their support they were promised that some silver would be retained in the half dollar, the largest regular circulation coin, and that there would be a new issuance of 45 million silver dollars. And probably with promises of more in the future. With these promises in hand the silver states changed their position and threw their support behind the coinage act of 1965 and the clad coinage. Then after passage of the Act they lost the promised silver dollars, but they did get the partial silver composition in the half through 1970. Why 40% silver instead of some other composition? I really don't know how they settled on that. The Mint was not happy with the deal, they wanted to eliminate the silver completely. Other considerations were that they most likely did not want to change the size of the coin, and they would want a significant reduction in silver content because a small reduction would only delay the problem briefly. The 40% composition would mean that silver prices would have to double before they would have problems (Which only took about five years) The coin was most likely made clad because a 40% solid alloy would most likely turn dark too quickly. The 80% outer layers of the clad coin would visually look very similar to the previous 90% coins, and they wouldn't care if the lower fineness core darkened
I think one reason was that they wanted to keep up the pretenses that the US dollar had not become a completely fiat currency. It's interesting that they were still redeeming silver certificates (for silver granules) until 1968, and made circulation 40% halves in 1969, but then offered the 1970 Kennedy silver half only in Mint and Proof sets, and then dropped the bombshell in 1971 that silver would no longer be used as a coinage metal, except for special collector coins (Eisenhower dollars) that would be sold by Uncle Sam for more than their silver content.
In other words they wanted to avoid the Royal Canadian Mint fiascos, ie the Tombac 5 cent coin of 1942-3, the chrome plated steel 5 cents that were issued into the early 1950s along with the regular nickel coins, and then going from .800 fine silver to .500 fine silver in 1967-8 and eliminating silver altogether in 1968 and having .800 and .500 coins issued in 1967, and then .500 and pure nickel coins issued in 1968. The RCM was still playing around with copper plated zinc cents and regular cupro-nickel 5 cent coins all the while striking the copper plated rolled steel cents and the nickel plated rolled steel 5 cent coins up until last year. It is a lot easier for the population and especially vending machine operators to have consistency with coinage.
I think that cointalk hit the nail on the head with reason that our government moved to 40% silver on the Kennedy half until the end of the 60's. It still made the coin less to make then the face value. If people hoard them, it helped the deficit.
