Collecting
With the exception of 1965 through 1967, proofs have been struck each year in the same metallic composition as regular issue pieces. The first Kennedy half dollar proofs were struck in early January 1964. Early strikes depicted Kennedy with heavily accented hair; an estimated 100,000 coins were struck with this feature. This was altered for the remainder of the mintage of nearly four million proof coins. Due to the coin shortage, the Treasury Department announced that no proof sets would be struck in 1965. Instead, Special Mint Sets would be struck to satisfy collector demand. Coins for these sets, minted at the San Francisco Assay Office, were struck with no mint marks early in 1966 with heavily polished dies dated 1965. Similar sets bearing the dates 1966 and 1967 were also struck. A few of the 1966 halves from the Special Mint Sets are known with Gasparro's initials "" missing from the reverse, apparently because of an overpolished die. The first year's production was sold in soft plastic packaging; the 1966 and 1967 issues were sonically sealed in hard plastic cases. In 1968, regular proof coinage was resumed, although production of proof coins was shifted to San Francisco and the "S" mintmark added.
In 1973, Congress authorized silver-clad collector versions of the Bicentennial coins; in April 1975, the Mint began to strike them. The coins were issued in both proof and uncirculated quality. Copper-nickel clad Bicentennial coins were placed in both the 1975 and 1976 proof sets, while their silver clad counterparts were sold in three coin sets. Since 1992, the Mint has struck Kennedy half dollars in 90% silver for inclusion in special silver proof sets. 1964 proofs were struck in Philadelphia, and since 1968, proof coins have been struck in San Francisco only. In 1998, some silver proof pieces were struck to a matte finish for inclusion in a set along with a Robert Kennedy commemorative silver dollar. Since 2005, uncirculated pieces included in mint sets have received a matte finish, which differentiates them from the pieces sold in bags and rolls.
Read more about this topic: Kennedy Half Dollar
Famous quotes containing the word collecting:
“In the very midst of the crowd about this wreck, there were men with carts busily collecting the seaweed which the storm had cast up, and conveying it beyond the reach of the tide, though they were often obliged to separate fragments of clothing from it, and they might at any moment have found a human body under it. Drown who might, they did not forget that this weed was a valuable manure. This shipwreck had not produced a visible vibration in the fabric of society.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“What pursuit is more elegant than that of collecting the ignominies of our nature and transfixing them for show, each on the bright pin of a polished phrase?”
—Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946)
“Though collecting quotations could be considered as merely an ironic mimetism—victimless collecting, as it were ... in a world that is well on its way to becoming one vast quarry, the collector becomes someone engaged in a pious work of salvage. The course of modern history having already sapped the traditions and shattered the living wholes in which precious objects once found their place, the collector may now in good conscience go about excavating the choicer, more emblematic fragments.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)