What has happened to 50-cent pieces? I suppose the collectors are hoarding all the silver ones, but what has happened to the cheap imitations? Nobody talks about this. Another cover-up conspiracy? –Bill Mitchell, Berkeley, California
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Time to appoint another special prosecutor. Not that she’d get very far–trying to establish why coins don’t circulate involves a search for first causes on a par with proofs of the existence of God. The immediate reason you don’t see halvies is that the U.S. mint doesn’t make many–30 million in 1993, compared to 1.3 billion quarters. The mint says it doesn’t make many because of lack of consumer demand–in fact it’s thought about eliminating the denomination altogether. Some coin experts say consumers don’t demand half- dollars because vending machines, pay phones, etc won’t accept them. A vending industry spokesman says it’s actually the other way around: the machines don’t accept them because people don’t use them. A spokesman for the Coin Coalition, a trade group, says it’s not the public that won’t use halvies but retailers, who dispense most change. We could go on like this all day.
Virtually every Kennedy half minted between 1964 and 1970–nearly 1.3 billion coins–disappeared from circulation as soon as it was issued. Kennedy admirers took many, of course, but silver speculators got most of the rest. The price of silver was rising at the time, and though quarters and dimes were promptly switched to cupronickel-clad copper, the silver content of halves was kept relatively high, apparently because of lobbying by the silver industry. Whatever the reason, the half-dollar ceased to play any part in daily commerce.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): Illustration/Slug Signorino.
