HALF DOLLAR THREAD for members.

[notabot]

This thread is a dedicated place to discuss Kennedy Halves

[eagames]

The Kennedy halfs are a fun serries, you can find most in unc from searching rolls. Cheap uncs are around for most years. There is no real key coin so it's a good one for begginers to collect without investing a fortune.

1964 the only uear of 90% silver
1965-70 40% silver
1968-s was low mintage
1970 had no P and the D & S are low mintage (only mint sets?)
1976 bicentenial also has 40% silver only in the 40% mint sets
1982-83 no mint sets but many were circultaed
1987 was only in mint sets none circulated
2002-present? none circulated but sold in sets or rolls by the mint.

There are some double dies and most are not expensive.
The easiest variety to find for me has been the 82 and 83 with no FG designer initials on the reverse but in reality it's just removed from die polishing but still worth some small premium.

In 64 there is a neat proof variety with accented hair. It has a neat story, if I remember his wife did not like the hair on the coin so they fixed it to please her and used it on the first proof sets then went back to the normal hair for the rest of the sets.

[notabot]

The story on the wavy hair Kennedy proof was just too kewL!!!

I just had to go find out, and located an actual pic of the marker:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Kennedy-Half-Dollar-Accented-Hair-Die-Marker.jpg


Thanks for the post, vause I had zero inkling about Kennedy varieties.
I turned a bag of 103 kennedy halves away at the credit union last month, and thanks to this post, I am now gonna go get me some if they are still there!!

[GarryN]

can you give more information about what the "accented hair" really means. I looked up the diagnostics on that coin and the only thing that mentioned was that one of the serifs at the bottom of the first "1" in the date is missing. The link above bears that out. So what about the hair?

[eagames]

This site has good pics and info on them:

http://www.ipotad.com/pages/ah2.html

Also notice he says 1% to 3% of 64 proofs were made with this die. It's just a good point to consider about die life that just making the proof half for 64 would take 33 to 100 die pairs if these numbers are right. It sounds reasonable to me. Just imagine how many die pairs get used on the non proof coins! They must be swapping them very fast since they make so many coins. Just imagine on modern cents there could be thousands of die pairs per year to make the billions of cents made. No wonder some varieties are like a needle in a haystack

[smed]

There are also a ton of doubled and tripled dies for 1964. I have a couple of the most common TDOs slabbed and a few more raw.

[notabot]

At the Baltimore show last year I got lucky and was able to authenticate a proof 1962 Roosevelt Dime Double Die (Obverse). If it is the only one in population, it might be considered rare.
I ordered a run of the mill 1960 proof set, and yesterday looked at it closely for the first time. It appears to be Doubled on the reverse. Is anyone aware of any other 60 ddr?
Thanks.

[eagames]

If the 1960 dime is not strike/machine doubled:

There's one listed variety of 1960 DDR dime that's not only on proofs. That's DDR die-4.

http://www.conecaonline.org/content/rooseveltdoubleddies19471962.html#_1960

[Dick]

Garryn, If you will look at a regular '64 half, you will see the hair is pretty well "combed all along the side" of JFK's head. On the "accentuated hair", it will be very noticably in the shape of a "Y", just above the ear. There are other "markers", but that is the main one.
Dick

[notabot]

This board is just amazing, and thanks for the reply. I will now have it submitted to NGC.