1976-D Bicentennial, Clad

Denver's Bicentennial Kennedy carries the highest mintage of any half struck for the 1776-1976 commemorative program, with 287,565,248 pieces delivered between mid-1975 and December 1976. The dual-dated obverse retained Gilroy Roberts's Kennedy portrait from 1964; the reverse, Seth Huntington's Independence Hall, replaced Frank Gasparro's heraldic eagle for the two-year run. Composition followed the standard post-1971 clad recipe: 75% copper and 25% nickel outer layers bonded over a pure copper core, 11.34 g total weight at 30.6 mm with a reeded edge. Denver carried the bulk of Bicentennial half production across both calendar years, and the small D mintmark sits just above the date on Kennedy's neck truncation. Half dollars by this point already saw less commercial use than dimes or quarters, but the Bicentennial release pushed them briefly back into wide distribution.

This coin entered circulation directly and remains the easiest 1776-1976 half to find in pocket change today, fifty years on. Mint State examples flow from broken 1976 Uncirculated Coin Sets, three-coin Bicentennial sets, and original mint-sealed rolls. Strike quality is generally adequate but inconsistent. Denver's dies wore aggressively during the long production run, and weakly struck pieces with mushy details on Independence Hall's clock face and Kennedy's hair show up frequently. The wide open fields surrounding the building catch bag marks readily, so MS66 coins with clean fields and crisp clock detail are notably scarcer than the raw mintage suggests. PCGS, the Professional Coin Grading Service, has graded a steady stream of MS66 and MS67 examples since the 1986 founding of the modern grading services, with the MS67 population still measured in the low hundreds.

For collectors the 1976-D Bicentennial is the most common date in the entire run, a true type-coin filler available raw at face value through gem MS65 at single-digit premiums. The collecting interest sits at MS67, where original-skin coins with full luster trade in the mid three figures. Year-set and Bicentennial-set builders use this issue as the Denver anchor, often paired with the Philadelphia clad and the silver San Francisco strike. Counterfeit risk is essentially zero given the modern clad composition. For the broader story of Roberts and Gasparro's design, the Bicentennial reverse, and the series' production arc, see the Kennedy Half Dollar series history.