1868

The 1868 half dollar is a Type 5 With Motto issue, the third year of the subtype that runs 1866 through 1873, and one of the lower-mintage Philadelphia dates of the post-war silver suppression era. Federal specie payments had been suspended since December 30, 1861, and silver coin remained absent from ordinary commerce throughout the late 1860s, displaced by greenbacks and fractional currency that the public actually used. With 378,400 pieces struck in Philadelphia, the issue trails its San Francisco sibling (1,160,000 for 1868-S) by roughly three to one in the same calendar year, an inversion of the usual pattern where the mother mint outproduces the branches. The Treasury kept Philadelphia output modest because there was no commercial demand to absorb a larger half dollar coinage; what the Mint did strike routed to vault storage, bullion settlement abroad, and brokers paying greenback premiums for hard silver. The Andrew Johnson impeachment trial was running in the Senate as these coins were leaving the dies.

Six working die marriages are catalogued for the date under the Wiley-Bugert system (WB-1 through WB-6), separated chiefly by vertical date position (high, normal, low) and by one repunched-date variety (WB-4) that commands a premium when correctly attributed. The WB-4 shows visible secondary numeral impressions under loupe examination and is the cherry-pick prize. Authentication starts with the published standards: 12.44 grams on a .900 silver planchet, 30.6 millimeters with a reeded edge, and the IN GOD WE TRUST ribbon arched above the eagle confirming Type 5 attribution. Date-position consistency with one of the six known WB layouts is a useful secondary check against altered-date fakes built from common dates in the series. Strike quality follows the established mid-Type 5 pattern, with the motto ribbon's TRUST lettering often rendered lightly even on otherwise sharp coins and the central obverse stars near the rim sometimes soft.

The 1868 is a textbook condition rarity for the series. Circulated examples in Good through Extremely Fine are obtainable with patience at moderate premiums, but the price curve steepens hard from About Uncirculated upward and Mint State examples are genuinely scarce, the natural consequence of so few coins ever entering and exiting commerce intact. For the full design arc and the motto-transition context, see the Seated Liberty Half Dollar series history.