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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: 4,829 ✭✭✭✭✭

    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: 17,124 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited February 3, 2018 7:10AM

    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: 44,365 ✭✭✭✭✭

    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: 36,949 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited February 15, 2018 6:29AM

    @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 government is incapable of ever managing the economy. That is why communism collapsed. It is now socialism’s turn - Martin Armstrong

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