Walking Liberty Half Dollar

History

The 25-year rule on coin designs set the replacement in motion. In 1915 Mint Director Robert W. Woolley concluded that the law required, not merely permitted, the retirement of designs in service a quarter century, which put the Barber dime, quarter and half dollar in play. Assistant Treasury Secretary William P. Malburn raised the question with Secretary William G. McAdoo on January 18, 1915, and McAdoo directed the Mint to try its own engraving staff first; submissions by Charles E. Barber and Assistant Engraver George T. Morgan were poorly received, one Barber design recycling a failed 1906 double eagle proposal. Woolley met with the National Commission of Fine Arts on December 3, 1915, and an invited competition among three sculptors followed, with Adolph A. Weinman taking two of the three commissions, the dime and the half dollar, while Hermon A. MacNeil received the quarter. Woolley notified Barber by letter on March 3, 1916, and set May 1, 1916 as the deadline for working models. The half dollar entered production the year before American entry into the First World War, ran through the Second, and gave way to the Franklin half dollar in 1948.

Details

Adolph A. Weinman designed both sides. The alloy stayed 90 percent silver and 10 percent copper for the entire run, with no wartime substitution, at a standard weight of 12.50 grams, or 192.90 grains, on a reeded edge. Published diameters range from 30.00 to 30.63 millimeters. Philadelphia struck coins without a mintmark, Denver used D and San Francisco used S, and the series was not produced every year between 1916 and 1947. Business strikes across the type total 485,320,340, with proofs struck only from 1936 through 1942 and totaling 74,400; the 1921-D is the low point of the business-strike run at 208,000, followed by the 1921 Philadelphia issue at 246,000, while 1943 Philadelphia is the high at 53,190,000.

Features

Liberty walks toward the sun on the obverse, right arm outstretched, the left carrying a bundle of branches, with the flag draped as a cape behind her. LIBERTY arcs above, IN GOD WE TRUST sits at lower right, and the date runs below. The reverse shows an eagle perched on a rocky crag from which a pine branch grows. Mintmark position is the one genuine change in the series: all 1916 coins and some 1917 coins carry the letter on the obverse, below the Tr of IN GOD WE TRUST, after which it moved to the reverse at lower left beneath the tree, making 1917-D and 1917-S obverse-mintmark coins scarcer varieties distinct from their reverse-mintmark counterparts of the same date. A 1946 doubled die reverse is the best known doubled die of the type.

Notable facts

• The key and semi-key dates are the 1916 issues from all three mints, 1917-D and 1917-S with obverse mintmark, 1919-D, the three 1921 issues and the 1938-D, whose mintage is cited at 491,600.
• High relief areas on the two sides sit opposite one another, which produces chronic weakness at Liberty's left hand and leading leg and at the eagle's breast and leg feathers.
• Sharply struck examples are scarce throughout the series, and strike is a persistent problem on San Francisco coins of 1940 through 1944.
• Denver halves of the 1940s are noted for frosty white luster and unusually good strikes, making strike quality a mint-by-mint and era-by-era question rather than a series-wide one.
• The 1921-S is generally treated as the practical key because examples above VF are scarce, despite the date not carrying the lowest mintage.
• A 1943 graded MS68+ brought $120,000 at auction on June 16, 2021.
• Art critic Cornelius Vermeule called the design one of the greatest coins of the United States, if not of the world.