Flowing Hair Half Dollar

When it comes to collectibility, the Flowing Hair Half Dollar is much the same as the Flowing Hair half dime and dollar:  the 1794 date is rare and really expensive even when you DO manage to find one;  the 1795 date isn’t cheap, but you can generally find one if you’re willing to shell out a few hundred bucks.

Specifications

 * Designer:  Robert Scot
 * Obverse Design: Liberty Bust
 * Reverse Design: American eagle with wreath
 * Edge: Lettered - "Fifty cents or half a dollar" (various ornaments between words)
 * Weight: ±13.5 grams
 * Diameter: ±32.5 millimeters
 * Composition:  Silver (89.2%), Copper (10.8%)
 * Dates Minted: 1794 - 1795

Background
Designed by Robert Scot, our nation’s first half dollar type was introduced in 1794. The coin ---identical to the Flowing Hair half dime and dollar coin – features a right-facing Liberty bust, hair flying back in the wind, and surrounded by stars. On the reverse is a rather scrawny-looking eagle. wings raised within a wreath. It was first struck in the second full year of operation at the United States Mint in Philadelphia.

History
The 1794 mintage for the Flowing Hair half was only 23,464. But that was the highest mintage of any of the Flowing hair silver coins: the 1794 half dime had a mintage of just over 7,000 and the 1794 dollar was only struck to the tune of 1,758 pieces! The 1794 half dollar retails $2,400 in Good, $6,000 in Fine. But consider: it’s a very low-mintage coin, it’s the first year of issue for the U.S. half dollar—and, face it, ANY 1794 U.S. silver coin is a hot item!

Up until the introduction of the Flowing Hair half dollar, the citizens of Colonial America and the early United States already had been using a “half dollar” of sorts. That would be the Spanish-Colonial 4 reales coin, otherwise known as “4 bits.” The Spanish-Colonail 4 reales are the true forerunner of our nation’s half dollar, but actually, the 4 reales was the scarcest of the Spanish-Colonial silver coins circulating in early America. The Spanish-Colonial ½. 1.2 and 8 reales coins were all more common than the 4 reales coin. Still, our forefathers saw fit to have a U.S. equivalent, so provisions were made for a half dollar coin.

Collecting
In 1795, production soared for the Flowing Hair half dollar. The total mintage was recorded as 299, 680. This is the highest mintage of any of the Flowing Hair silver coins, whether dated 1794 or 1795. True, the 1795 half dollar mintage isn’t too much more than the 1795 dollar mintage, recorded at a little over 203,000 pieces. But even with nearly identical mintages, the 1795 Flowing Hair half dollar retails at $650 in Good, while the 1795 Flowing Hair dollar retails at $1,150 in Good. It’s a simple matter of demand—more collectors want the big silver dollar coin than want the smaller half dollar. That will probably always be the case. That means the 1795 half dollar will be your most obtainable Flowing Hair silver type coin, both in terms of availability AND price.

There are actually two major varieties of the 1795 Flowing Hair half dollar. There is the standard 1795 half dollar (the one that retails $650 in Good), and the “3 leaves” type 1795 half dollar which retails $1,050 in Good, $3,000 in Fine. There is also a minor 1795 variety, that being the “recut date” type. This variety retails just a little higher than the standard 1795 half dollar.

Grading
Unlike later U.S. silver dollar types, which often were stacked in bank vaults, the Flowing Hair half dollar got out into circulation. Most examples that come down to us today are in the About Good to Very Good grade range. It’s common for the date and legend areas to be heavily worn and obscured. It’s pretty rare for a Flowing Hair half to still have most of its hair detail. A 1795 half dollar in Very Fine retails around $3,700 while an Extra Fine example (when and if you can find one) retails in the $7,500 range!

And like its half dime and silver dollar siblings, the Flowing Hair half dollar was not struck after 1795. It would be replaced by the more graceful and artistic Draped Bust half dollar in 1796, thus leaving 21st century collectors with an early, two-year-only U.S. coin classic of the 1790’s!

Mints

 * Philadelphia Mint (No mintmark)