Kennedy Half Dollars Silver Clad 1965-1970

The Kennedy half dollar first went out on March 24, 1964. The 1964 coins were the traditional 90% silver, but they were hoarded almost as soon as they appeared. Behind that sat a bigger problem. Silver's market price kept climbing, and the Treasury was holding it down by selling its own silver at about $1.29 an ounce. Coin World reports that in 1963 the country used 221 million ounces of silver but mined only 35 million. Coins were also scarce, with a shortage NGC traces back to 1963.

The Coinage Act of 1965, signed July 23, 1965, ended silver in the dime and quarter. The half dollar kept some silver, but as a layered coin with a much lower silver content: 40% instead of 90%. The Act also let the Mint keep striking 90% coins dated 1964, and Philadelphia made 1964-dated halves through 1966. The Act also barred mint marks for a period, so no half dated 1965, 1966 or 1967 carries one.

Mint marks came back in 1968. Denver remained the only source of halves for circulation, and San Francisco struck proofs for collectors. In 1970, Congress was weighing a bill to take silver out of the half entirely. While that bill was pending, the Mint made only enough 1970-D halves to fill its uncirculated sets. The bill became Public Law 91-607 on December 31, 1970. It allowed 40% halves only until January 1, 1971, and set the new half as copper-nickel over a copper core.

The obverse portrait is by Gilroy Roberts and the reverse by Frank Gasparro. The coin is 30.6 mm across with a reeded edge, the same design and size as the 1964 half and later halves. So the date and the metal, not the design, set this series apart.

• 1965, 1966, 1967: no mint mark at all, including the Special Mint Set coins struck in San Francisco.
• 1968 to 1970: a D (Denver, circulation strikes) or S (San Francisco, proofs only) on the obverse, at the truncation (the cut-off edge) of Kennedy's neck.

To separate a 40% half from its neighbors:

• Date: any half dated 1965 to 1970 is 40% silver. Regular halves dated 1971 and later are clad with no silver.
• Edge: clad halves show a clear orange or brown copper band in the middle of the edge. PCGS notes that 40% halves do not have this sandwich look.
• Weight: a 40% half is 11.5 grams, against 12.5 grams for a 1964 half and 11.34 grams for a clad half. The 1-gram gap to 1964 shows on a decent scale. The 0.16-gram gap to clad is another matter. CoinWeek warns that for quarters a gap of that size sits inside normal weight tolerance, and the same caution applies here, so check the edge and date as well.

CoinWeek also notes a slightly pinkish rim on some 1965 coins.

• 1970-D: the key date. All 2,150,000 coins went into collector uncirculated sets; none were issued for circulation. NGC says the dies were often worn and that prooflike and deep prooflike coins turn up more often than for earlier dates.
• Special Mint Sets, 1965–1967: collector sets struck by the San Francisco Assay Office in place of proofs, without mint marks. See the 1965 SMS, 1966 SMS and 1967 SMS. NGC notes doubling of Kennedy's profile on many 1966 SMS coins, catalogued here as the 1966 SMS Doubled Die Obverse. We also list a 1966 SMS No "FG".
• 1968-D: the first Kennedy half with a D on the obverse.
• Proofs, 1968–1970: the 1968-S (3,041,506 struck), 1969-S and 1970-S are 40% silver. NGC reports a 1968-S variety with the S punched upside down.
• Doubled dies: CoinWeek lists a 1965 doubled-die reverse with doubled stars (FS-802) and a 1966 doubled-die obverse (FS-101). NGC reports several doubled-die obverse varieties for 1967.

Other dates in the series: 1965 (65,879,366 struck), 1966 (108,984,932), 1967 and 1969-D.

The 1965 Act defined a three-layer coin. The two outer layers are 80% silver and 20% copper. They are bonded to a silver-copper core, which CoinWeek gives as 20.9% silver and 79.1% copper. The law fixed the finished totals: 11.5 grams per coin, with silver at 4.6 grams and copper at 6.9 grams. That makes the whole coin 40% silver by weight.

A 40% half holds roughly 41% of the silver in a 1964 half. Earlier 90% halves are covered on the 1964 Kennedy series page, and later clad halves are covered on the 1971-to-date page.