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Melt on a Franklin Half is $6.30....I could have had more fun with the money in 1965!

CoinstartledCoinstartled Posts: 10,135 ✭✭✭✭✭

Bowled in a league with a couple of friends when I was a kid. Cost me a dollar of my $3.00 allowance.

Afterwards my friends would head to the nearby Chinese restaurant and spend a buck on the Pine Float special.

Being a wise and frugal young man, I headed instead to the bank on the same corner and bought a couple of Franklin halves which they usually still had available.

I was not a collector at the time, this was strictly an investment decision.

It was a bust though. Sure the coins trudged along with inflation and had a few spectacular moves over the half century, but today they are worth essentially what they were in 1965.

...and before the wise guys chime in to tell me that I could have bought Apple, Amazon and Tesla back then, well it was way early and I probably would have bought Blue Chip favorites Kresge, GM and Bethlehem steel.

;)

Comments

  • hchcoinhchcoin Posts: 4,825 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Well, they ate the food and have nothing to show for it. You still have your coins and I call that a good investment for a young kid B)

  • CoinstartledCoinstartled Posts: 10,135 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @hchcoin said:
    Well, they ate the food and have nothing to show for it. You still have your coins and I call that a good investment for a young kid B)

    Good point...they were hungry an hour later.

  • renman95renman95 Posts: 7,037 ✭✭✭✭✭

    ...and before the wise guys chime in to tell me that I could have bought Apple, Amazon and Tesla back then, well it was way early and I probably would have bought Blue Chip favorites Kresge, GM and Bethlehem steel.

    ...Kresge, GM and Bethlehem steel...would have been a KIQ in your portfolio. ;-)

  • chumleychumley Posts: 2,305 ✭✭✭✭

    A franklin half would buy a ton of mint julips or squirrel nuts in 1965.....that was penny candy back in the day

  • rickoricko Posts: 98,724 ✭✭✭✭✭

    In 1965, a Franklin half would have purchased ten draft beers at a local bar.... I remember when the drafts went to ten cents, my Dad and I went there and had a few of the last nickel beers in town. Cheers, RickO

  • CoinstartledCoinstartled Posts: 10,135 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Probably 3 or 4 Mickey's Banana Flips.

    Ahhh the good old days...

  • OPAOPA Posts: 17,104 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited February 3, 2018 8:10AM

    1/4 oz Burger & fries for $.49. Today the same would cost you less than $6.00. You'r ahead of the game if you held on to your coin. B)

    "Bongo drive 1984 Lincoln that looks like old coin dug from ground."
  • TwoSides2aCoinTwoSides2aCoin Posts: 43,796 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Every hoard I’ve purchased was typically guys like us being frugal. Not collecting coins, rather pulling the value out of circulation change, and stacking it up.
    A few of them graduated to buying direct from the Mint. Where did that get them ?
    A few guys break open those sets to put in albums.
    In the end, most of us were having fun our way.

  • astroratastrorat Posts: 9,221 ✭✭✭✭✭

    In 1965, I would have likely been using my Franklin half dollar for teething. :D

    Numismatist Ordinaire
    See http://www.doubledimes.com for a free online reference for US twenty-cent pieces
  • derrybderryb Posts: 36,118 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited February 15, 2018 7:29AM

    @Coinstartled said:
    Melt on a Franklin Half is $6.30....I could have had more fun with the money in 1965!

    While the cost of fun is in the eye of the spender, today your $6.30 silver half dollar can buy much more than it could in 1965.

    The decline from democracy to tyranny is both a natural and inevitable one.

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