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Half Dollar in Change
I got a half dollar in change yesterday. Nothing special just a 2024 D in AU/BU. I think it has been well over a decade, maybe two, since I received a half dollar in change.
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I gather them from the register tills at work and use them for tips. We gotta keep them in circulation!
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Back when I was a bartender in college (I am dating myself, but it was 1976), we had rolls of the bicentennial half dollars. A gallon of gas was 56 cents. A shot (or mixed drink) was $1.50 for premium booze. (there has been 7x inflation since then, so do the math!). We gave the 50 cent change with a new Bicentennial half, and got a dollar back usually. We never got the half dollar back in change or a tip, but we made up for it in business at the bar.
I think that today if someone gave me one of the new half dollars in change I would get down on my knees.
I'm a big fan of halves and dollars in circulation. I use them daily. All it takes is enough people doing that to where cashiers don't perceive them as special anymore and hand them back out.
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As the COVID era wore on, I started seeing Kennedy half dollars in circulation. My local gas station began giving them out in change (this was around 2022). Finally I asked the manager why they were using half dollars, and he said it was difficult to get rolls of quarters from their bank in the quantities they needed for day-to-day change, so they'd started stocking up on half dollars as an alternative. This was around the time the Federal Reserve began ordering half dollars for circulation and the Mint released them through the Fed into the channels of trade. It took a national emergency to get them out of the vaults. Interesting times!
With the cent leaving circulation, a slot opens up for halves in the cash register.
Nothing is as expensive as free money.
Fixed that for you.
Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, "Meditations"
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