AboutMyCoinKennedy Half Dollar Cheat Sheet
Notes
- The 1964 half dollar is 90 per cent silver.
- Halves dated 1965 to 1970 are 40 per cent silver, which is easy to miss: they look like the clad ones.
- Every half from 1971 onwards is copper-nickel clad, apart from the silver pieces sold in collector sets.
Condition
As always, condition matters when it comes to Kennedy half dollars. Kennedy half dollars with all of their features, or with nice original lustre, should be set aside.
Dates
Dates and mint marks to be on the look out for.
| Date | Mintage | Rank | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1970-D | 2,150,000 | Key date | Sold only in 1970 mint sets, never released into circulation. |
| 1987-P | 2,890,758 | Semi-key | Mint sets only. No 1987 half was struck for circulation. |
| 1987-D | 2,890,758 | Semi-key | The same story as the 1987-P. |
| 2002-P | 3,100,000 | Better date | From 2002 the half was struck for collectors only and not released into circulation. |
| 1999-P | 8,900,000 | Better date | |
| 1999-D | 10,682,000 | Better date | |
| 1982-P | 10,819,000 | Better date | See the missing FG initials below. |
| 1988-D | 12,000,096 | Better date | |
| 1986-P | 13,107,633 | Better date | |
| 1982-D | 13,140,102 | Better date | |
| 1988-P | 13,626,000 | Better date | |
| 1978-D | 13,765,799 | Better date | |
| 1978 | 14,350,000 | Better date | |
| 1991-P | 14,874,000 | Better date | |
| 1993-D | 15,000,006 | Better date | |
| 1991-D | 15,054,678 | Better date | |
| 1998-D | 15,064,000 | Better date | |
| 1986-D | 15,336,145 | Better date | |
| 1993-P | 15,510,000 | Better date | |
| 1998-P | 15,646,000 | Better date | |
| 1979-D | 15,815,422 | Better date |
Common Kennedy Half Dollar Errors
| Error | What settles it |
|---|---|
| 1982-P missing FG | The designer's initials FG are missing from the field beside the eagle's tail, because the die was polished too hard. Commonest on 1982 Philadelphia coins.Wear, a weak strike and a grease-filled die all soften those initials on ordinary coins. On a genuine one the field where they should be is smooth and fully struck, with the detail all round it sharp. |
| Off-centre strike | Part of the design is missing and a plain crescent of blank metal is left in its place. The struck part stays fully sharp right up to where it stops.A coin ground, filed or mangled by machinery after it left the mint loses detail gradually and leaves burred metal. A genuine off-centre strike has a clean, sharp boundary and an untouched blank beside it. |
| Clipped planchet | A smooth curved bite out of the rim, with the rim flattened or the design weak directly opposite it.A coin cut or snapped after striking has a rough edge and a burr. That weakness opposite the clip is the part that is hard to fake, so if the rest of the rim is perfectly normal, be sceptical. |
| Die crack or cud | A raised irregular line wandering across the flat field, or a raised blob of blank metal over the rim where a piece of the die broke away.Raised is the die; cut into the surface is damage. If a fingernail catches in it, it is a scratch. Worth very little unless the cud is large. |
| Repunched mint mark | The mint mark shows a second, offset outline of itself, both impressions rounded and equally raised.Machine doubling is far more common and looks flat, shelf-like and shiny along its doubled edge rather than rounded. If the second image reads as a smear rather than a second letter, it is machine doubling and is worth nothing. |
| Lamination flake | A thin layer of metal peeling away or already missing, in a flat irregular patch, caused by impurities in the strip the blank was cut from.Corrosion and environmental damage look similar and are very common on coins that sat in the ground or in a damp jar. A lamination has a clean step down to the layer beneath; corrosion is pitted and rough. |
Rare Kennedy Half Dollar Errors
| Error | What settles it |
|---|---|
| 1964 accented hair | Extra hair strands above the ear, and the lower left serif missing from the I of LIBERTY. It exists only among the 1964 proof halves, which have mirror fields and frosted devices.An ordinary 1964 half struck for circulation cannot be one, however sharp the hair looks. If the fields are not mirrored, the coin is not a proof and the question does not arise. |
| 1974-D doubled die | Doubling on IN GOD WE TRUST on a 1974 Denver coin, clearest on the letters R, U and S, both images rounded and separated.Machine doubling leaves a flat shelf along one edge of a letter rather than a second rounded image, and it is far commoner on this issue than the doubled die is. |