If Kennedy hadn't been assassinated, how likely is it Franklin would still be on the half $ today?
csdot
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Weird to think that if Kennedy hadn't been assassinated, the US Mint might still be striking Franklin halves today.
We still have Lincoln cents (1909 - present).
We still have Jefferson nickels (1938 - present).
We still have Roosevelt dimes (1946 - present).
We still have Washington quarters (1932 - present).
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Yep
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I second that "YEP".
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At the very least, I'm guessing the Franklin design would have been modified to lower the relief long ago had it not been replaced.
Pretty much a 100% true statement.
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Heck, the're might of even been an "Accented Hair" Franklin? On second thought...!
"Jesus died for you and for me, Thank you,Jesus"!!!
--- If it should happen I die and leave this world and you want to remember me. Please only remember my opening Sig Line.I think at least the half dollar would still be in circulation, especially if they had made a clean cut from 90 % to clad instead of the 40% slow burn into oblivion. In other words, if we had 40% Franklins from 65 to 70, it might have been enough alone to kill the half with all the silver hoarding.
No assassination and I’m pretty sure Ben’s face is still minted annually.
Very good question. No doubt he'd still be on the half.
And yes, he would have gotten the spaghetti hair in the mid 90s. Maybe by now they would have softened it back a but like they did with the quarter, or restored the relief like they did with the half.
Very, very good question.
I think Ben would still be on the half.
Agree.
I think so.
There probably would have been an Ike half dollar instead of one dollar . . .
I might have to disagree.
As I recall, the Ike dollar was issued as a way to bring back a dollar coin more than to find a way to honor Ike. Ike was the lucky beneficiary of the obverse design selection.
What year would Franklin have been given spaghetti hair?
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Wasn't it about 93 or 94? Just going from memory with the quarter.
The amazing thing about the Kennedy piece is that it went from conception to legislation to creation in a matter of weeks. Hard to imagine the government could move that quickly today. More at omeka.wustl.edu/omeka/exhibits/show/nnp-selections/kennedy-halfdollar.
There is a Stephen King book "11/22/63? you should all read. No spoiler's but the ending could answer your question.
An agree from me.
We would probably have RFK halves or MLK Jr. halves.
It stands to reason....
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And yes, if there still were half dollars being minted, they would be Franklins.
But I think that if Kennedy were not on the half, the denomination would already have been retired.
I think that the half dollar would've been discontinued long ago without the Kennedy assassination.
More then likely Ben would still be on it
@csdot
Great question to ponder, I suspect the answer is yes
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I agree that Franklin Half Dollars would have been retired earlier than the Kennedy Half.
But they would have lasted for awhile, how long is up to debate.
Can you imagine a spaghetti hair lowered relief clad Frankie??
I shudder to think it.
Pete
I would think that the Half Dollar would have been eliminated by now, especially since it does not circulate widely anymore.
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We would likely still see old Ben, in silver and a saint in gold, instead of in the grave.
If kennedy hadn’t been assassinated, everything we are experiencing now would’ve happened about 40 years ago
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One belief is the addition of Kennedy to the half, and the mass hoarding of the first year(s) issues by fans of the deceased president, led to the half no longer serving as a regular circulating form of change in this country.
I wasn’t around back then, so maybe some of the 60+ crowd can weigh in on whether the half dollar circulated more regularly prior to 1964.
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I was in elementary school in the 1950's and high school in the early 1960's and I routinely saw and used half dollars, both Franklins and Walkers.
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Half Dollars were used in the 1950's and early 1960's.
I started collecting in the early 1960's. On our farm we had a vegetable strand that I tended, and so I got lots of change to look through. Walking Liberty and Franklin halves both were found in change, and often. Also, Mercury Dimes, Buffalo Nickels and a Standing Liberty quarter or two.
In the 1950's and 60's my father had a bread route (similar to the old milk routes) and he kept a cigar box of change on the truck. (Going through that cigar box is how I got started collecting coins, but that is another story.) Each night he would pull out any halves he had taken in and throw them in a large jar to save up to pay my and my siblings' tuition down at the parochial school. A typical year's haul averaged around $200, which actually covered most of the tuition.
One year our washing machine died and my parents could not afford to replace it for a while, so Ma went down to the local laundromat. I would go along to help carry stuff and help watch my younger brother and sister. The washer was a quarter and the dryer was a dime. While killing time I used to check out the change machines. They had one machine that would take a dollar bill and give you four quarters. They had another machine that would take a quarter and give you two dimes and a nickel. A third machine took a half dollar and gave you five dimes. That was better than the two dimes and a nickel, because the only machine that took nickels was the candy machine where you could get a pack of gum or a roll of Lifesavers for a nickel. With six kids my Ma needed that extra dime for the dryer.
After I graduated High School (1968) I used to go out and play cards with my oldest brother (back from Nam that year and living with my parents for a while) on Friday nights. Afterwards we sometimes stopped at a "steak and egger" restaurant near the house to unwind. There was a juke box near the door, and each booth had a remote control you could play the juke box from. One song was a dime, 3 for a quarter or 7 songs for a half dollar. By then half dollars were getting uncommon due to the hoarding of silver in general and Kennedy halves in particular, but they must have been in circulation when that restaurant was built around 1962, or else why have a slot that took halves?
Half dollars were not "common" before 1964, but they were in circulation, and you could get all you wanted down at your local bank.
TD
They haven’t changed anything else. Why Ben?
Cool question! I'll bet it would be a clad Ben Franklin half...
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Hmmm, they might even still be silver....
Conspiracy theory is he wanted to keep the Silver Certificates or Bank Notes in circulation (convertible to silver) vs. the Federal Reserve Notes, and that he was pushing the US Mint to bring back the silver dollar. Both of those items died on the vine with him. Guess LBJ knew better than to cross the Fed.
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Great question. The possibilities are endless. Imagine if things were all mixed up...Franklin halves lasting until just after the bicentennial, then it switches over to a Susan B Anthony Half, the Ike remains in circulation until bumped out by a Sacagawea large size dollar and then that one gets bumped by a Buffalo Silver Dollar which remains in circulation to this day. Then a new small size golden State Dollar appears with four new designs a year. The dime and quarter remain untouched for years.....seriously though, we probably would still have the Franklin Half, but only minted for collectors. > @CaptHenway said:
I went down to the local bank and asked for a box of halves. I had to order the box and wait two weeks. Fun coin searching through those, but only found one silver Kennedy.
My only recollection of the Franklin was as a youngster. Mom gave me a list and money to go to the local supermarket on a grocery errand. Walking, of course. Not too far, 3 blocks. My reward was a Franklin. That promptly went to baseball card packs and/or candy.
I believe Franklin would have remained on the half dollar. Halves were commonly used back then... Even WLH's would be encountered in circulation....The decline in usage would have occurred anyway though....not sure why larger coins fell out of favor... different reasons... probably the combination of them all. Now, all coin change seems to be falling in use.... Clerks are really surprised when I often give them exact change for a purchase...Cheers, RickO
Yeah, or if something is $8.87 and you give them $10.12 so you get back a dollar bill and an even quarter they look at you as if you have just performed majick!!!!
Another half dollar recollection. My first wife and I married in 1986. Once or twice a year we would go to the Arlington Park racetrack NW of Chicago. Admission was a nominal 50 cents which you paid by dropping a half dollar into a turnstile. Don't know why they did it that way but they did.
Just before the turnstiles was a cashier who would give you two halves for a dollar bill, or break a larger bill if you needed to. Past the turnstile was a booth selling programs for $2.50. Many people spent the second half they got from the changemaker there. Since my wife and I used both halves in the turnstiles I gave the program seller paper and got a half dollar in change. Less counting, I guess. Everybody was in a hurry to get to the betting windows.
All parimutuel bet payoffs were rounded down to multiples of ten cents. The cashiers only had dimes and half dollars. You got one to four dimes, a half dollar, or a half dollar plus one to four dimes. No quarters, which did not fit into their decimal system.
@CaptHenway.... Still laughing at your comment "Yeah, or if something is $8.87 and you give them $10.12 so you get back a dollar bill....". That absolutely amazes some checkout clerks....I do it just to confuse them sometimes. One clerk called over a manager to ask what she should do...The manager looked at me, shook her head, and told the clerk what to do....Cheers, RickO
Doing this is a lot of fun. I enjoy the "Deer in the headlights" look on the clerks face. Makes getting older easier.
Back when I was working at ANACS in the early 1980's I was able to buy some problem large size bills and fractional bills cheap. One time after a visit to Rocky Mountain National Park, where I bought some postcards, I stopped at a small town post office on the west side of the park and asked the nice young lady behind the counter for five 13 cent stamps. She said "That'll be 65 cents" and I gave her two quarters and a 15 cent bill. Eventually she said that I would have to wait for the Postmistress to come back from lunch.
Another time I spent a 1914 $10 FRN at a Long John Silver's on Fillmore. The young man asked what it was, and I said "That's a $10 bill from 1914. I'm a time traveler, and that's the closest I have to this decade." He took it, and the next day brought it by the ANA Headquarters building. Fortunately it was Rick Montgomery's turn to answer a visitor's question, so he brought it back to me to get a value.
Most times, even the manager doesn't know what to do.