Contains 90% silver
That is the metal alone. A 1964 half in worn condition is a bullion coin; in high grade it can be worth a great deal more to a collector.
A half dollar changed metal twice in seven years
Ninety percent silver
Barber, Walking Liberty, Franklin and the first year of Kennedy. Every half dollar struck for circulation in this period is a silver coin.
Forty percent silver
A six-year compromise. Silver was pulled out of the dime and quarter entirely, but the half kept a reduced amount in silver-clad layers.
No silver at all
Copper-nickel over a copper core, the same construction as a modern quarter. Only the San Francisco proofs sold in silver sets contain any silver.
Work out what you have
Four checks that separate a silver half from a clad one in about ten seconds, using the edge, the weight, the sound and the wear.
Price a jar or a bag
Enter a date and a count. The calculator gives mint weight and the trade weight a dealer will actually pay on, which are not the same number.
Every date, 1892 to today
One page per year, laid out as an album page. Empty slots are the years no half dollar was struck at all.
Specifications and arithmetic, not price guesses
What a coin is worth to a collector depends on grade, eye appeal and what someone will pay this week. Those numbers are proprietary, we do not licence them, and inventing them would make this site worthless to you.
What can be stated exactly is how much silver is in the coin, because Congress set it by statute. Multiply that by a live spot price and you get a floor: the number below which nobody sane sells. That is what this site computes, on every page, for every date.
- A 90% silver half
- $24.79
- A 40% silver half
- $10.14
- $100 face of 90% silverAt the 0.715 ozt per dollar trade standard
- $4,900.18