Everything You Need to Know About Franklin Half Dollars
From 1948 to 1963, the United States Mint issued 90% silver (and 10% copper) half dollars known as Franklin half dollars. These fifty-cent pieces, which contain about 0.3617 ounces of silver, depicted on their obverse one of the most famous and well-known of our founding fathers. But unlike most of the others, Benjamin Franklin never served as president.
Benjamin Franklin
Instead, he was a legendary scientist, inventor of things like the battery and the lightning rod, a pamphleteer, the first Postmaster General, a Pennsylvania governor, and first U.S. Ambassador to France where he helped secure critical financial and diplomatic assistance from France in the American war for independence. He also founded the first fire department and first lending library, and he was the voice of the American colonies in England where he helped resolve conflicts.
Franklin also played an important role in U.S. numismatic history when he commissioned French engraver Augustin Dupre to engrave what became known as the Libertas Americana medal. It is considered the first American medal, although they were struck by the Paris Mint in France. Franklin conceived of and designed the medal to commemorate the American Revolution.
Nellie Tayloe Ross, a former Wyoming governor who served as the first female Director of the United States Mint from 1933 to 1953, was an avid admirer of Franklin. In 1941, during her tenure, the Mint looked into putting him on the dime but shelved those plans later. There was also talk of putting Franklin on the penny because of his association with the adage, “A penny saved is a penny earned,” which he probably borrowed from a source.
Design of the coin
But Ross thought Franklin deserved to be on a larger coin than a penny. Instead, in 1947 she asked Chief Engraver John R. Sinnock to prepare designs for a half dollar honoring Franklin. The design features a simple right-facing bust truncated at the shoulder. Franklin is shown with his characteristic long, wavy hair and wearing a suit of the period, and the date appears to his right with “Liberty” inscribed above and “In God We Trust” below.
This obverse design was inspired by a medal Sinnock had created in 1933 that was based on an 18th century bust of Franklin prepared by Jean-Antoine Houdon, a French artist whose bust of Washington inspired the Washington quarter obverse design.
Sinnock’s reverse shows Liberty in the form of the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia with a small eagle appearing on the right that was added towards the end to comply with the 1873 legal requirement that an eagle appear on the reverse of any U.S. coin denomination higher than a dime.
The Liberty Bell design was based on the design that Sinnock created for the 1926 sesquicentennial commemorative half dollar issued to mark the 150th anniversary of our independence. “United States of America” appears above the bell and “Half Dollar” below, and “E Pluribus Unum” is on the left side of the bell.
At the time the design was being considered, the Commission on Fine Arts, which advised the Mint and Treasury on coin designs, did not like the reverse because the eagle is so small. They also didn’t like the crack in the bell, thinking it would provoke puns and derogatory statements about the U.S. But not including it was more likely to have that effect since everyone knows it is cracked.
As it happened, the commission’s recommendations were rejected in favor of Sinnock’s design. But he passed away in May 1947 before finishing the reverse design, which was completed by his successor Gilroy Roberts, who is best known for his work on the Kennedy half dollar.
Release of coins
On January 7, 1848, the Mint issued a press release announcing the new coin, mentioning Franklin’s well-known reputation for being thrifty and hoping the coin would help remind people to put extra cash into savings bonds and savings stamps.
In terms of the history of American numismatic art, the Franklin half dollar is very significant because it continued the shift in our coinage begun in 1909 with the Lincoln cent. This meant depicting prominent Americans (mostly presidents) on our circulating coinage instead of the allegorical portraits of Lady Liberty that appeared on our coinage from 1792 until 1947 when the final Walking Liberty half dollars were issued.
For some this meant the end of the so-called golden age of coinage design that had begun in the early 20th century. In addition, Franklin was the first non-president and the fifth real person to be featured on a regular-issue U.S. coin following those for Lincoln, Roosevelt, Washington and Jefferson. Lady Liberty would not return until the debut of the American Eagle program in 1986.
The new half dollars went on sale on April 30, 1948, the anniversary of Washington’s 1789 presidential inauguration, where they were sold by employees of a savings bank dressed in Revolutionary-era dress. The coins were announced with great fanfare in the numismatic journals of the time, but the simple design and the shift from Walking Liberty half dollars whose design was so admired resulted in an initial lack of enthusiasm from collectors.
However, many people did put away bank-wrapped rolls of the coins that were saved for many years, and collectors began assembling sets by date and mint mark. They weren’tvery concerned with the quality of mint state coins, which was not good because the design’s plain obverse and open fields and the high area of the bell resulted in weaker strikes.
There was also some controversy when the coins were first released because the artist’s initials (“JRS”) because it is like “JS” — the initials of Joseph Stalin, the Soviet dictator — and some people though the initials had been placed there by a Kremlin infiltrator at the Mint. That led to what Walter Breen referred to as “outraged official denials” from the Mint.
Collecting Franklin Half Dollars
This is a series for every collector. It is one that silver stackers love because those who look for and purchase 90% silver coins of lower quality known as “junk silver” love to find Franklin half dollars in those lots of silver coins. And rolls of circulated and mint state coins also remain popular with silver buyers and numismatic collectors.
Collecting the series by date and mint mark was initially not so widespread in the early 1950s when half dollars were the workhorse coins of the American economy. Mintages for these coins were also lower during that period because there were still plenty of Walking Liberty halves in Treasury vaults.
By 1957, demand for these coins was higher and by 1962 things had changed a great deal. Collecting new U.S. Mint issues especially by the roll became very popular in this period, creating what became a “roll craze” that even led the Mint to stop using mint marks for several years. This also led to more people putting away examples of the coins from circulation and more collectors pursuing sets of the coins too.
The series is popular today in part because it is so affordable. Almost anyone can put together a set of circulated examples of all 35 coins in the series, and even mint state coins unless they are very high grade are quite affordable too. There are no major rarities unlike many other series.
Of the almost 500 million Franklin half dollars struck, the key dates by mintage are 1948, 1949-S, 1953 and 1955. But keep in mind that because of widespread melting of these coins, especially in 1979–80 when silver prices went crazy, some issues are much rarer than their mintages suggest.
Franklin half dollar value
In addition to the affordability of Franklin half dollars and their great appeal as larger silver coins, they also offer great value for collectors in several other ways too.
First, Proof examples were struck from 1950, and some of the Proofs have a “cameo effect” with frosted surfaces and mirrored fields, and they are worth a premium. You can search for the cameo coins in Proof sets from the 1960s and later.
Then there is the fact that the coin’s design resulted in many poorer-quality examples of many issues, especially from the late 1950s when the master dies deteriorated, which are used to make the working dies. The Mint made some small updates to the design during this period, which resulted in 1958 and 1959 what are known as Type 1 and Type 2 coins. Type 1 coins have four tail feathers in the eagle on the reverse, while Type 2 coins have just three. In 1960 they recut the master die, which improved quality.
Well-struck Franklin half dollars have Full Bull Lines (FBL). To qualify for this designation, a coin must have 7 parallel lines making up the bottom of the bell that are clearly visible plus three wisps of hair to the right of Franklin’s ear on the obverse.
A 1958 PCGS MS67+ FBL sold in 2018 for an amazing $129,250, the highest price paid for a Franklin half. A 1963 coin is one of the most common dates, but an example graded PCGS MS66+ FBL sold in 2019 for $85,187.50.
Another factor impacting quality is that many of these coins were damaged by roll friction, which happens when coins in a roll rub together, which causes steel-grey abrasions typically seen on Franklin’s cheek and the Liberty Bell’s center.
