1964-D

Denver beat Philadelphia to the press on this one. The first 1964-D Kennedy halves came off the dies on January 30, 1964, several weeks before Philadelphia's run, making Denver the actual production opener for the memorial design authorized by Public Law 88-256 in December 1963. Mintage closed at 156,205,446 pieces, well under Philadelphia's 273-million figure but still enormous by half-dollar standards. The composition is 90% silver and 10% copper at 12.50 g (0.36169 oz of fine silver), and the coin remains the only Denver Kennedy struck at that fineness before the Coinage Act of 1965 dropped half-dollar silver content to 40%. Roberts's GR initials sit at the neck truncation; Gasparro's FG sits to the right of the eagle's tail feathers.

Strike quality on this issue tends to run a step ahead of the Philadelphia 1964, in part because Denver worked through the run with fresher dies and less production pressure. Collectors evaluating Mint State pieces should still concentrate on Kennedy's cheek and jawline, where bag marks accumulate first, and on the central eagle for any weakness in the breast feathers and shield lines. Beyond the base date, four separately catalogued obverse die varieties exist for the 1964-D, all worth checking against under 10x magnification: a Doubled Die Obverse (the prominent FS-101), a Tripled Die Obverse, a Quadrupled Die Obverse, and a D/D Repunched Mintmark. None of these affects the base 156-million mintage figure, but a sharp eye on the date numerals, the LIBERTY motto, and the mintmark itself can pull a premium piece out of an otherwise common holder. Attribution should come from PCGS or NGC; raw seller claims on varieties this specific are worth treating skeptically.

As a collecting target, the 1964-D is the second of the two 90%-silver Kennedy issues and a required slot in any first-year or year-set assembly. It is common through MS64 and gradually scarcer above MS65, with gems at MS66 and MS67 carrying real premium and MS68 effectively a rarity. Raw examples trade as bullion-plus-numismatic in lower grades; certification becomes meaningful once the grade band crosses MS65. For the broader story of Roberts and Gasparro's design, the Kennedy memorial issue, and the series' production arc, see the Kennedy Half Dollar series history.