When I was a boy, I enjoyed a nightly routine with my dad. When he came home from work, I got to “check the change.” It was something of an allowance supplement–as long as I didn’t overdo it. I would collect the old wheat reverse cents (right). The occasional “Mercury” dime or “Buffalo” nickel would pop up. By the end of the 60′s, all these finds dried up. When I was a fourth-grader in 1968-69, I put old coins on a bounty with my classmates. I promised to pay a dime for every pre-1938 nickel, and a quarter for every pre-1945 dime.
These days, I buy an occasional roll of half dollars from the bank. The local bank has a stash of several dozen $10 rolls. My friend at the bank said someone ordered several hundred dollars’ in halves. I suspect said someone, got partway through, and gave up in frustration.
I found two collector-only issues, dated 2003 and 2004 the other week. They stopped making Kennedy halves for circulation (like halves circulate anymore …) in 2002.
Worth $1 between the two of them. But given that collector demand inspires the US Mint to produce only about two million of these a year, almost all of which are mailed to collectors, this was a pretty rare find.
