The Susan B. Anthony dollar has gained wide publicity in the seven weeks since its introduction, much of it negative and focusing on faults people find with the coin. However, this new dollar does still attract attention.
That's more than can be said for the John F. Kennedy half dollar, which was Introduced amid similar hoopla 15 years ago. The Kennedy “half” has become a forgotten coin — seldom seen, almost never used and barely even mentioned anymore. And yet, for all its apparent irrelevance in the marketplace, the half dollar still is being struck — and officials at the United States Mint say they have no present plans to stop producing them.
“We really don't think very many half dollars are being used in commerce,” Mint Director Stella B. Hackel conceded in a recent interview. “They do go somewhere, though, so someone must want them. And so we are minting a sufficient supply to meet this demand for the coin — which is, for the most part, numismatic.
“There's no loss, really, to the Government,” Mrs. Hackel added. “We .riake 46 cents on every half dollar we produce.”
That profit results from seigniorage — the difference between the face value of a coin and the actual cost of its production and distribution. Like the Anthony dollar, the Kennedy half dollar currently is made of a copper‐nickel alloy bonded to a core of pure copper. The cost of this metal is low, so the Mint can produce and distribute half dollars for a mere four cents apiece. (The somewhat smaller Anthony dollars cost three cents each, so the government's profit on them is 97 cents per coin.)Continue reading the main story
The Mint produced approximately 28 million circulation‐quality half dollars in 1978, and made about 44 million more between Jan. 1 and June 30 of this year. Its seigniorage on this combined production totals about $33 million.
Kennedy half dollars are far from scarce. Since 1964, when the series came into being, the Mint has turned out some 2.5 billion examples of the coin — a greater number than the com- bined mintages of all previous half dollars in U.S. history. Yet, just as fast as the coins come out, people seem to put them away.
Hoarding of Kennedy halves was understandable at the start. The coins were highly prized as memorials to the slain president, not only among Americans but also among Kennedy admir- ers overseas. Foreigners, in fact, paid substantial premiums to get them at the time. Then, too, the first Kennedy halves had a silver content of 90 percent, and this prompted people to save them as bullion prices started to spiral.
In 1965, the coins’ silver content was cut to 40 percent — but in time, as bul- lion boomed, even these “part‐silver” pieces came to have premium value as metal.
It's harder to explain why the hoarding has continued. Since 1971, Kennedy halves have had no silver content —with the exception of the 15 million Bicentennial half dollars which were struck in 40 percent silver for sale in special sets at a premium price. Mintages have been relatively high. Yet, people still insist on setting the coins aside, and few see significant circulation.
Part of the explanation may lie with the half dollar's size. Weaned away from their earlier use of the coin, many Americans now find it bulky and unwieldy. The very fact it isn't widely used also is a factor in perpetuating that disuse; being unaccustomed to handling the coin, people put it aside when it does come into their hands. But the primary factor, now as in 1964, appears to be what historians describe as the appeal of “the Kennedy mystique.”
Mint officials now concede that the decision to issue a coin honoring John Kennedy — a decision born of emotion, and widely hailed at the time — served, in effect, as a death sentence for the half dollar as a commercially useful denomination.
“I don't think anyone realized the implication at the time,” says Dr. George E. Hunter, chief of assay laboratories for the Mint. “Essentially, we were relegating a denomination to less than full‐circulation status.In restrospect, even if that had been recognized, it still might have been done,” he adds. “It's my guess, though, that if we had continued to issue Benjamin Franklin half dollars, and were making clad Franklin halves today, they'd be in general circulation now.”
Dr. Hunter notes that the very first Kennedy halves soon became the target of a two‐pronged attack by hoarders. People who sought them as tributes to Kennedy were joined, in short order, by others who desired them as pieces of precious metal.
“It was this combination which made it so difficult to get the coin into circulation,” he observes. “Everybody wanted it — if not for one reason, then for the other. And that type of attitude just carried forward.” •
Granting that the Government makes money by striking half dollars, the coins’ continued production nonetheless puzzles some observers. Why make a coin, they wonder, if it isn't going to be used?
Then there is the matter of size. Perhaps the most common criticism of the Anthony dollar is the argument that its size is too close to that of the quarter. The coins will be confused, critics say. In this context, some see dubious logic in retaining a half dollar which is larger, in turn, than the dollar. Mrs. Hackel answers this objection by noting that the nickel is larger than the dime. Even so, some skeptics remain unconvinced.
“I keep wondering if Gresham's Law won't go into effect,” says Kenneth E. Bressett, editor of Whitman's Red Book, the most widely used guidebook on U.S. coins. “It strikes me that people will want to hoard two half dollars, rather than one Anthony dollar, just because the half dollar looks like it's more valuable — even though neither coin really has much intrinsic value. feel as though it's human nature to pack away two big ones instead of one little one.”
Political considerations undoubtedly are involved in the Mint's determjnation not to drop the current half dollar. Retirement of a coin paying tribute to John Kennedy surely would encounter resistance on Capitol Hill — and in any case it's the sort of move a Democratic administration would be most reluctant to make. It's worth noting that the same officials were less hesitant in shelving the coinage portrait of Repúblican Dwight D. Eisenhower.
However tenuous the Kennedy half dollar's role may be as a circulating coin, its status as a collector's item is healthy — and that health has been improving steadily. Complete sets of Kennedy halves, including proofs plus uncirculated examples of regular issues, now bring upwards of $150 — twice the amount they brought two years ago. And dealers predict that the price will continue to rise — especially if the Mint terminates the series, as many anticipate will happen before too long.
“A lot of people think of a set of Kennedy halves as something common,” says Jay Parrino, proprietor of The Mint, a coin dealership in Kansas city, Mo. “Well, they're not as common and easy to get today as they were a year ago. And a year from now, they'll be lot less common than they are today.”Continue reading the main story