1970-S half could rise from obscurity
The 1970-S Kennedy half dollar is an interesting but not well known half dollar from what would prove to be an interesting and unusual year for the denomination. With its interesting history, it is hard to know precisely where the 1970-S will go next in terms of price and that is just one of the many interesting considerations surrounding the coin.
Back in 1970, the Kennedy half dollar was still 40 percent silver. No one had ever fully explained why in 1965 the silver and dime had all of their silver eliminated while the half dollar’s silver was merely reduced to 40 percent. Perhaps with its higher face value, it was felt that some silver should be kept in.
There were more interesting twists to the story in 1970, the greatest of which was that it was decided not to make Kennedy half dollars for circulation in 1970. What made that decision all the more interesting was that no one bothered to tell collectors at the time. Instead, it was announced that the only 1970 half dollars would be those found in the yearly proof and mint sets after the sets’ ordering period had passed. Had the announcement been made earlier, there would have been much larger sales of both types of sets.
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When the word reached collectors, there was a mad dash to find 1970 mint sets that contained a 1970-D half dollar. The problem was that there were not many to be had as the sales had only been 2,150,000. The price of the 1970-D shot up like a surface-to-air missile. Although like a surface-to-air missile that misses its target, the 1970-D would drop pretty quickly in price later.
Lost in all the attention being paid to the 1970-D was the fact that in the proof sets there was a 1970-S, and it had a total mintage of 2,632,810. Back in
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