1973 1973-D 50C MS62

History

The Kennedy half dollar began as a memorial issue after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas on November 22, 1963, with Congress moving quickly to redesign the denomination and displace the Franklin half dollar introduced in 1948. By 1973 the coin had passed through two silver compositions and reached its copper-nickel clad form, the Denver Mint having begun striking cupro-nickel halves on February 3, 1971 under Public Law 91-607 at a planned rate of two million pieces per day. Demand fell off sharply in the years that followed: from roughly 450 million halves struck in 1971, combined 1973 production dropped to 148,135,400 pieces across Philadelphia and Denver. Vending equipment and cash drawers were not built for the large coin, and the public habit of setting Kennedy halves aside kept most of them out of everyday commerce.

Details

Gilroy Roberts designed the obverse portrait and Frank Gasparro the reverse, both adapted from work the two engravers completed in 1961 for the John F. Kennedy Presidential Series Medal. The coin consists of an outer layer of 75 percent copper and 25 percent nickel bonded to a pure copper core, weighing 11.30 grams and measuring 30.61 mm across, with a reeded edge of 150 reeds. Denver struck 83,171,400 pieces, the larger of the two 1973 circulation mintages against 64,964,000 from Philadelphia, while San Francisco produced 2,760,339 proofs.

Features

The obverse carries Kennedy's left-facing portrait with LIBERTY around the periphery, IN GOD WE TRUST divided to either side in the lower field, and the date beneath. Gasparro's reverse follows the Presidential Seal, with a heraldic eagle holding an olive branch and arrows, a shield on its breast, a ring of stars around it, and the legends UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, E PLURIBUS UNUM and HALF DOLLAR. One die variety is attributed for the date, a doubled die obverse listed as FS-101 and, under the older numbering, FS-014.8; both PCGS and NGC certify it, and populations remain in the single digits at the MS65 level. Mint errors are also known for the issue, including a double-struck piece with the second strike 10 percent off center and a double denomination struck off center on a 1973-D quarter.

Notable facts

• No single date in the Kennedy half dollar series is considered rare, and business strikes above MS66 or MS67 account for most of the premium activity.
• PCGS has certified 70 examples in MS67, three in MS67+ and one finer, with an MS68 among its top-graded pieces.
• NGC reports 49 coins in MS67, one in MS67+ and three finer.
• Because the 1973 halves contain no silver, they escaped the melting that thinned the 1964 90 percent silver and 1965 to 1970 40 percent silver issues.
• The National Park Service estimates that about 4.1 billion Kennedy half dollars have been produced since 1964.
• The Kennedy half dollar remained a circulating business-strike denomination through 2002.