1969 Kennedy Half Dollars 1964 to Date AU58

History

The Kennedy half dollar entered production in 1964 as a memorial to President John F. Kennedy, struck within months of his assassination. Rising silver prices soon threatened circulating silver coinage, and the Coinage Act of 1965, signed July 23, 1965, removed silver from the dime and quarter while reducing the half dollar from 90 percent to 40 percent silver. The 1969-D falls in the middle of that 40 percent run, which lasted from 1965 through 1970. Because the 1970 half was struck only for mint and proof sets, the 1969-D is the last 40 percent silver Kennedy issued in quantity for commerce, though the denomination saw little actual circulation as the pieces were set aside.

Details

Gilroy Roberts designed the obverse and Frank Gasparro the reverse. The planchet is a silver-clad sandwich: outer layers of .800 silver and .200 copper bonded to a core of .209 silver and .791 copper, yielding a coin that is 40 percent silver and 60 percent copper overall with no nickel. Each piece weighs 11.50 grams, measures 30.6 mm across and 2.15 mm thick, and has a reeded edge. Production took place at the Denver Mint.

Features

The obverse carries Roberts' left-facing bust of Kennedy with LIBERTY, IN GOD WE TRUST and the date, and the D mintmark sits above the date rather than on the reverse. Gasparro's reverse adapts the Presidential Seal, showing a heraldic eagle with shield, olive branch and arrows within a ring of 50 stars, accompanied by UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, E PLURIBUS UNUM and HALF DOLLAR. The 80 percent silver outer layers were chosen so the coin would look nearly identical to the 90 percent silver halves it replaced. In practice a 1969-D separates from a later copper-nickel clad half by date and by the absence of a copper stripe on the edge.

Notable facts

• Production of the 40 percent silver composition began at 10:00 a.m. on December 30, 1965, at the Denver Mint, and all halves of that first batch were dated 1965 and struck without a mintmark.
• The 1965 to 1970 silver-clad type accounts for 848,895,006 business strikes and 8,608,947 proofs across all dates.
• The grade jump at the top of the population drives the value: an MS66 sold for $171.67, while an MS67 realized $2,640.00 in March 2018 and a second MS67 record stands at $2,157.30.
• Circulated 1969-D halves remain common, but a large share have been removed from circulation for their silver content.
• Silver disappeared from the half dollar entirely in 1971, when the denomination shifted to copper-nickel clad.