1862

The 1862 half dollar is a Type 4 No Motto issue struck during the first full calendar year of the Civil War, and the year that the wartime contraction in Philadelphia silver coinage really took hold. Production fell to 253,000 pieces, a sharp step down from the 2,888,400 struck in 1861 and the lowest Philadelphia half dollar delivery of the era. The collapse was demand-driven rather than capacity-driven. The federal government had suspended specie payments on December 30, 1861, paper greenbacks were authorized in February 1862, and the public responded by pulling silver and gold out of daily commerce and into household hoards. New Orleans had been lost to the Confederacy after January 1861, so federal silver half dollar production for the year fell to two mints: Philadelphia at 253,000 and San Francisco at 1,352,000. Most of the Philadelphia coinage went into Treasury vaults or moved overseas for bullion settlement rather than into ordinary American pockets.

The low original delivery is part of why specialists treat this date with more respect than the Regular badge on this site suggests. Series cataloging on Wiley-Bugert and PCGS CoinFacts routinely lists 1862 as a semi-key on a survivor-and-grade basis. Strike quality on Philadelphia coinage of the year is generally crisp on the shield vertical lines and the eagle's neck feathers, with the usual softness arriving on Liberty's upper hair strands and the upper-obverse stars as dies aged. Survival is broad in low circulated grades (Good through Fine, since the small mintage still got handled by what little commerce did move), thins noticeably above Very Fine, becomes scarce in true Extremely Fine and About Uncirculated, and is genuinely rare at gem Mint State. Authentication on circulated examples rests on the 12.44-gram weight, 30.6-millimeter diameter, reeded edge, and a plain field above the eagle on the reverse (the motto IN GOD WE TRUST did not arrive on the half dollar until 1866). Die marriage attribution uses date position relative to the rock and reverse die cracks through the legend.

For broader context on the design and the wartime production trough that defines this issue, see the Seated Liberty Half Dollar series history.