PMScoggin JFK 50c Basic Silver Short Set, Circulation Strikes (1964-1970)

关于此套币: Few moments in the 20th Century have been examined and probed in greater detail than the events that occurred in Dallas, Texas, on the morning of November 22, 1963. When three shots were fired in rapid succession from an open sixth floor window above Dealey Plaza, the course of our Nation’s history was irrevocably changed. The youthful and eloquent President of the United States, the standard bearer of a new and passionate generation, was dead.

In the terrible sadness of the days and weeks that followed the sudden, tragic death of President John F. Kennedy officials at the United States Mint received numerous letters and telegrams suggesting a “coin of the United States be struck in honor of our late President, John Fitzgerald Kennedy.”

President Lyndon Johnson quickly acknowledged the importance of honoring the life of his predecessor with a new United States coin. According to records held by the Historian's Office at the United States Mint, a White House Press Release from Press Secretary Pierre Salinger and dated December 10, 1963, conveyed a statement from President Lyndon Johnson to the Congress of the United States proposing the “coinage of 50-cent pieces with the likeness of the late John Fitzgerald Kennedy.” In the same Press Release, the new President also makes mention of the fact that “[W]ith the adoption of this proposal each of the five denominations now being produced by the Mint, i.e., one-cent through fifty-cent pieces, would have the likeness of a President on the obverse of the coin.” With President Johnson's proposed legislation in hand, the House of Representatives took up the matter exactly one week later, on December 17, 1963. Following debate, the final vote count in the House of Representatives was overwhelmingly in favor of producing the new Kennedy half-dollar; 352-6. With little opposition, the legislation passed through Congress becoming Public Law 88-256, approved and signed into law by President Johnson on December 30, 1963.

In the weeks between the signing of the law and the striking of the first coins, Mint Chief Engraver Gilroy Roberts and his protégé, Frank Gasparro, were charged with the creation of the new half-dollar's design. Designed by Roberts, the coin’s obverse features the bust of President Kennedy (which was based upon Kennedy’s inaugural medal) with the inscriptions “Liberty”, “In God We Trust” and the date. The coin’s reverse, designed by Gasparro, shows the Presidential Coat of Arms with the inscriptions “United States of America”, “Half-Dollar” and “E Pluribus Unum”.

Simultaneous striking ceremonies were held in Philadelphia and Denver on February 11, 1964, beginning the production of what Mint Director Eva Adams stated would be “90 million of the new half-dollars in 1964,” roughly the equivalent of 1963’s production of Franklin half-dollar coins. First made available to the public beginning on March 24, 1964, demand for the new coin was unprecedented with the new coin being eagerly sought by souvenir hunters, collectors and those nostalgic of the “Kennedy era.” Additionally, despite a mintage of nearly 430 million coins carrying a 1964 date (though more than half of these were actually struck in 1965 and 1966), the new Kennedy halves were also hoarded by speculators.

Hoarding was further fueled by a reduction of the coin’s precious metal content from ninety percent in 1964 to forty percent for the 1965 production year, when production dropped dramatically to less than 66 million pieces. The .400-fine silver content continued in use through 1970, despite having been abandoned in 1965 for a copper-nickel composition used for the dime and quarter dollar denominations.

The dramatic five-fold price rise of silver bullion in during the later 1970s would be the catalyst for the “great silver melt” during which time an undetermined quantity of silver coins were melted for their bullion content—the value of which greatly exceeded the coins’ face value. While generally speaking, the 1970-D is considered the “key date” coin for this set, based solely on its very limited non-circulating production of only 21.5 million pieces, in fact, no one knows for certain just how many coins and of what dates and Mint marks were destroyed by melting during the tumultuous 70s.

Obverse Description: Designed by Gilroy Roberts, the coin’s obverse features the bust of President John F. Kennedy with the inscriptions “Liberty”, “In God We Trust” and the date.

Reverse Description: Designed by Frank Gasparro, the coin’s reverse shows the Presidential Coat of Arms with the inscriptions “United States of America”, “Half-Dollar” and “E Pluribus Unum”

Sources:

The Story of the Kennedy Half Dollar. US Mint, Historian’s Corner. (2007) Oct 8. Online: http://www.usmint.gov/historianscorner/index.cfm?action=nugget08-12-07

About U.S. Coins - Kennedy Half Dollar. Coin World (2012) Aug 22. Online: http://www.coinworld.com/kennedy-half-dollar/