1867-S

San Francisco delivered 1,196,000 half dollars in 1867, all carrying the IN GOD WE TRUST ribbon that had been added to the design the prior year following the Act of March 3, 1865. The Pacific branch turned out a workmanlike commercial run for an issue that, two years past the close of the Civil War, faced a coin market still warming back to silver: paper currency continued to dominate transactions in the East, while gold and silver moved freely on the West Coast, which had never abandoned hard money. The 1867-S sits midway through the four-year With Motto, No Arrows window opened in 1866 and offers no major design distinction beyond that ribbon, a circulating workhorse from a busy branch mint, with survivors reflecting the role they were minted to play.

Strike on the 1867-S follows the familiar San Francisco pattern, with the obverse stars taking the brunt of the softness and Liberty's head, the central shield rivet, and the eagle's leg feathers also showing reduced detail on routine production. The motto ribbon itself reads cleanly on most coins, while the lowest curl of Liberty's hair and the highest folds of her gown carry the typical Pacific-branch flatness. Authentication begins with the published standards of 12.44 grams and 30.6 millimeters with a reeded edge, then turns to the reverse: the S mintmark sits below the eagle, above HALF DOL., and should rise cleanly from undisturbed field, since added-mintmark fakes built from Philadelphia 1867 coins remain a documented trap for San Francisco halves of this era. The WB variety landscape is well-developed for specialists, with multiple obverse-reverse pairings catalogued including a "Very Small S" mintmark variant and a "Recut S" attribution; a 10x loupe inspection of the mintmark shape will place any given coin within the published register. Mint State examples through about MS63 turn up with patience, while MS64 and finer pieces stand as genuine condition rarities for the issue.

For date-set collectors, the 1867-S is a routine Pacific-branch acquisition that trades at moderate premiums over type-coin levels in mid-circulated grades and rises sharply once it crosses into uncirculated territory. For the design's broader arc and the With Motto transition context, see the Seated Liberty Half Dollar series history.