Introduced in 1948, the silver Franklin Half Dollar would only have a sixteen year run before an assassination would lead to its replacement in 1964 with the Kennedy Half Dollar.
During that time, over 466 million of the half dollars were minted. Despite a number of those coins being melted down (described later in this article), the coins are relatively easy to for collectors to find at surprisingly affordable prices even into the higher grades.
Franklin Half Dollar Roll of 20 Circulated condition
$259.00Price
Excluding Sales Tax
- Each Franklin Half Dollar contains .36169 ounces of pure silver which solidifies the value of the strikes, but can and has lead to a large portion of them melted down for their silver content. This was exemplified in the mid-60′s when thousands were removed from circulation to be melted because the price of silver exceeded their 50c face value.
Occurrences such as that could happen again if the numismatic value of the lower grades does not keep up with their intrinsic value. For instance, when silver reaches a market value of $20 per ounce, as it has on more then one occasion through the years, each coin has a melt value of $7.23 based on their content of .36169 ounces of silver. As the precious metal rises, so does their melt values.