Kennedy Half Dollars Mintage

The Kennedy Half Dollar was created to memorialize President John F. Kennedy. The mintages for the coin were immense in the early years of the series as many members of the public saved the coin as a memento. Over the years, this actually led to a decline in use for the denomination, which resulted in dwindling mintages for the duration of the series, which continues to the present day.

Kennedy Half Dollar

The design of the coin features a portrait of the President, facing left. The inscription “Liberty” is widely spaced above and “In God We Trust” is across the neck line. The date appears below. On the reverse is an eagle based on the Presidential Seal. There is an olive branch and arrows in its talons and fifty stars surrounding. A banner above the eagle reads “E Pluribus Unum”, while the inscriptions “United States of America” and “Half Dollar” surround the image. For the 1976 Kennedy Half Dollar the reverse image was changed to depict Independence Hall and the date on the obverse was “1776-1976”.

For the Kennedy Half series:

  • There have been 4,096,824,385 coins produced for circulation from the start of the series in 1964 until 2010. The series is still being produced each year at the Philadelphia and Denver Mints in limited quantities to satisfy collector demand.
  • The average mintage for circulation issues is 47,637,493, however this is highly skewed by earlier high mintage issues. Since 2002, the mintages have ranged from a low of 1,700,000 to a high of 3,800,000.
  • The highest mintage issue is the 1971-D Kennedy Half Dollar at 302,097,424 pieces.
  • Traditionally, the 1970-D Kennedy Half dollar has been considered a key date issue due to the low mintage of 2,150,000. Several issues in the past decade now have mintages below this level.
  • Overall, there are 86 date and mint mark combinations within a complete set of circulation strike coins. This includes issues through 2010.

Kennedy Half Dollars Mintages

IssueMintage
1964273,304,004
1964-D156,205,446
196565,879,366
1966108,984,932
1967295,046,978
1968-D246,951,930
1969-D129,881,800
1970-D2,150,000
1971155,164,000
1971-D302,097,424
1972153,180,000
1972-D141,890,000
197364,964,000
1973-D83,171,400
1974201,596,000
1974-D79,066,300
1976234,308,000
1976-D287,565,248
197743,598,000
1977-D31,449,106
197814,350,000
1978-D13,765,799
197968,312,000
1979-D15,815,422
198044,134,000
1980-D33,456,449
198129,544,000
1981-D27,839,533
198210,819,000
1982-D13,140,102
198334,139,000
1983-D32,472,244
198426,029,000
1984-D26,262,158
198518,706,962
1985-D19,814,034
198613,107,633
1986-D15,336,145
19872,890,758
1987-D2,890,758
198813,626,000
1988-D12,000,096
198924,542,000
1989-D23,000,216
199022,278,000
1990-D20,096,242
199114,874,000
1991-D15,054,678
199217,628,000
1992-D17,000,106
199315,510,000
1993-D15,000,006
199423,718,000
1994-D23,828,110
199526,496,000
1995-D26,288,000
199624,442,000
1996-D24,744,000
199720,882,000
1997-D19,876,000
199815,646,000
1998-D15,064,000
19998,900,000
1999-D10,682,000
200022,600,000
2000-D19,466,000
200121,200,000
2001-D19,504,000
20023,100,000
2002-D2,500,000
20032,500,000
2003-D2,500,000
20042,900,000
2004-D2,900,000
20053,800,000
2005-D3,500,000
20062,400,000
2006-D2,000,000
20072,400,000
2007-D2,400,000
20081,700,000
2008-D1,700,000
20091,900,000
2009-D1,900,000
20101,800,000
2010-D1,700,000

Source: KennedyHalfDollars.net