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I first got involved in coin collecting back in the early ‘90s, and before too long I was trying to branch into other areas of the hobby besides Lincoln Cents (which I still love) or what I could find in my pocket change. And at the age of 11 or 12 years old and with little allowance money to speak of, I admittedly found it hard to settle on a series I both liked and could afford. But one that caught my eye was the Franklin Half Dollar.
At the time, a couple people asked me why it was I liked Franklin Half Dollars. I remember saying something to the effect that the affordability of the coins was appealing, the design was nice (Ben was always one of my favorite Founding Fathers, and I had an affinity for the Liberty Bell since I was little, too), and the series was short enough to make it easy to collect.
Remember that in the early 1990s, the coin industry was still slumping from the market crash of 1989-90. That’s when several major Wall Street hedge-fund investment groups and many lay (non-numismatic) investors alike pulled out of the hobby en masse. Plus, silver was hovering between about $4.50 and $6 an ounce. And with just 35 issues struck for circulation during the entire span of the series from 1948 through 1963, it was possible for me to purchase a ready-made complete 35-piece set of raw, lightly circulated Franklin Half Dollars for about $300 to $350 in total. However, I had two problems with that: the price was still too far out of my adolescent budget, and I really didn’t want to buy a completed set – I yearned to build it from scratch.
Well, before too long, I got hooked on building a 20th-century type coin set and distracted myself from ever procuring more than about five or six of the 35 coins necessary for a basic date-and-mintmark run of Franklin Half Dollars. I never really ventured back to Franklin Halves. But intriguing subject matters around the Franklin series keep popping up from time to time within my space as a numismatic author, editor, and researcher, and it all piques my curiosity. And I find that so many other collectors simply love this series – and for many of the same reasons I did when I was a kid all those years ago.
The Franklin Half Dollar series is approachable and not intimidating (that is unless you want to build a Full Bell Lines – or FBL-designated – set of Franklin Halves, in which case that can take many years and a ton of cash to build a competitive assemblage on the PCGS Set Registry)! Even as we’ve learned in recent years about the fuller historical legacies of some of America’s Founding Fathers, Benjamin Franklin is still recognized as one of the most admired and affable people of his time. The Franklin Half Dollar was the last United States half dollar series in which every issue was struck in 90% silver. And very few examples, even in lower to mid-range Mint State grades, are prohibitively expensive for a broad cross-section of collectors. What’s not to like about any of that?
Ultimately, Franklin Half Dollars prove to be a classic silver series that can legitimately excite and challenge collectors of all budgets and skill levels. Whether seeking circulated examples from the business-strike arm of the series, want proofs, desire varieties, aim for FBL-graded specimens, or hope for it all, Franklin Half Dollars truly have something for everyone.