Franklin Half Dollar Often Overlooked

If potential sleeper coins to be listed, the 1960 Franklin half dollar might be overlooked because it is so much a sleeper that even people looking for under-priced coins would likely miss it.

The 1960 half suffers in terms of recognition from a host of problems. First, it is indeed simply one of the Franklin halves that are more or less routinely overlooked. It is not old by numismatic standards. First produced in 1948, it was discontinued after 1963 in favor of the Kennedy half dollar before it had lasted even 25 years. By modern standards, it is a short-lived coin.

Basically, the Franklin half is considered common. It was produced when there were perhaps more truly active coin collectors than at any other time in American history. Franklin half dollars were readily available at virtually any bank for those collectors who wanted them. Few did because there were many more interesting and potentially more valuable options available.

The 1960 date makes things just that much worse. In many minds, few coins of any importance were produced after 1955. The 1960 Franklin is considered just another coin of the 1960s, and in most minds there were virtually no coins of interest in the 1960s – at least in terms of potential price appreciation. There were a number of other options in terms of better dates in circulation. There were still Walking Liberty halves, Buffalo nickels and some better-date cents and nickels. That made it easy to overlook the 1960 half dollar.

Actually, it was easy to overlook all Franklin half dollars. Most collectors of the period were young and on limited budgets. They basically chased cents, nickels and dimes. Perhaps they over- looked half dollars simply because they could not afford them.

Even if a collector turned to Franklin half dollars, the 1960 did not strike them as a key or even a semi-key date. The 1948 and 1949 Franklins were at least older, if not actually old, and they were lower mintage coins than the 1960. Franklin halves had a lot of lower mintage dates, led by the 1955, with a mintage of just under 2.5 million pieces. Compared to the older 1955, the 1960, with its mintage of 6,024,000, did not exactly impress anyone at the time. But times and attitudes do change.

Through the years, the 1960 continued to impress few, if any. Silver rose dramatically in price, and silver coins were destroyed by the tons. When it was worth close to $20 for its silver content alone in early 1980, no one would have saved a 1960 Franklin half dollar. There was no reason to believe it was anything special and would ever be worth more than its high silver value.

That is largely why the 1960 Franklin half might be worth a second look today. No half dollar that followed it has a lower mintage for circulation. There were another 1,691,602 produced for proof sets, but that is barely more than 50 percent of the following year’s production for proof sets.

Those facts alone should be enough to indicate that the 1960 deserves serious consideration, and there is also that destruction factor. At $50 an ounce for silver, a 1960 Franklin half dollar was a prime candidate for the melting pot.