THE LAST OF ITS BREED

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A BRAND NEW, SHINY, UNCIRCULATED SILVER 1947 WALKING LIBERTY HALF DOLLAR!  IT'S A MIRACLE!
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If you have read my post of August 12, 2012, titled "AMERICA'S GREATEST COIN", you will understand why I am excited about what I'm about to tell you.  It is good that we who love America, and have experienced its blessings for so many decades, now and then take a walk back through the years, and down Memory Lane.

Here's what happend:  an old Clovis friend of mine, of many years, recently met me at one of those coffee places where coffee is more expensive than gasoline.  We were sitting there, chit-chatting and Ed (we'll call him), who is known to save a few old Indian Head pennies now and then, but is certainly no heavy-duty coin collector, pulled a little felt bag out of his pocket, and right there on the table, by our smoking coffee cups, dumped a plastic-wrapped coin, sealed tight to protect it from the elements!

My friends, I nearly had an event!  There was the most beautiful coin I had ever seen!  It was a brand new uncirculated 1947 United States Walking Liberty, real silver Half Dollar!  I had seen, earned, handled, and spent many of them, in my younger days...but I had NEVER SEEN a brand new one!

Suddenly that coin took me back across the years to our beloved hometown, Clovis...to boyhood times, when we tried to rustle up some job, somewhere, anywhere....and maybe earn one of those.  A half dollar was a half dollar in those days!

I was looking at THE LAST OF ITS BREED.  After 1947 it was discontinued, reportedly due to "minting problems."  It may have been discontinued officially, but it was never discontinued in our hearts.

There it was, lying there between our smoking coffee cups, as if someone had planned an artistic display!  And you want to know what hit home----it was the words, plain as day, right there on the front:  "IN GOD WE TRUST."  Some clever politician hadn't relegated the Creator to the EDGE of this coin, as in the recent (now defunct) presidential set.

This coin, designed by Adolph A. Weinman and issued in 1916, endured through the end of WWI, The Roaring Twenties, The Great Depression, WWII and the beginning of The Cold War in 1947, the final year of its minting.  It remained in circulation and was followed by the Franklin and Kennedy halves.  In the early sixties, silver coins, including dimes and quarters (and halves) were replaced by lesser metals.  The Kennedy half was reduced from 90% to 40% silver, and finally discontinued, in that format, in 1970.

The half dollar was one of the most useful and popular coins ever issued---particularly in the first half of the Twentieth Century.  It was used extensively in casinos and gambling venues.  With the deletion of silver from the half dollar, the availability waned in the closing decades of the Twentieth Century.  The reason is somewhat unclear, but it may be that folks kept collecting the bigger coins faster than they could be produced, although there was no intrinsic value, such as silver, in them.  Now quarters are the main coins in commerce.

In the forties, a "fifty-cent piece", as they were commonly called, would buy a little boy ten twelve-ounce Pepsi Colas, ten packages of Walnettos, a big sack of marbles, a couple of spinning tops, comic books, movies, popcorn, candy, Cracker Jacks, or a twenty-cent ham salad sandwich at Woolworth's, with change left!  Enough to head for Coney Island Cafe and a hot dog for dessert!

So...this 1947 coin, lying there on the table, in front of Ed and me---was truly the last of its kind--its breed.  This one was never issued.  Its efficacy in the world turned out to be:  "merely exist, look nice and shiny, and grow in value."  It has done all these things, particularly the appreciation-in-value part---this coin cost Ed one hundred dollars.  (It also missed all the vicissitudes of life!)

Ed and I sat there, and talked about his fascinating coin, and as old-timers often do, we began trying to remember what happened in old Clovis, sixty-six years ago.  We had a great talk, and when he left, he carefully packed away his treasure into his pocket...a lot of memories there!

So many, in fact, that when I got home, I took my ipad up to my attic study and did some searching to find out what was going on in 1947---the final year of the Walking Liberty Half Dollar.  Here's what I found out:

In 1947:
---The average income per year in the USA was $2,850.
---A new house might cost $6,600.
---A new Ford four-door sedan cost $1,248.
---Gasoline was 15 cents a gallon.
---Bread was 12 cents a loaf.
---A pack of cigarettes was 20 cents.
---Milk was 24 cents a quart.
---Home freezers and backyard cookers were gaining in popularity.
---Everyone loved the new frozen orange juice concentrate.

In 1947:
---We were just beginning to pay off our WWII debt, which, counting lend-lease and everything, came to circa $288 billion.


In 1947, big news in the US:
---the famous Roswell UFO crash
---Jackie Robinson broke into major league baseball.
---The National Security Act established the CIA, NSA, and a separate United States Air Force branch of service.

In 1947, in the heavens:
---The largest group of sunspots ever seen were reported around the world.

In 1947, on Broadway:
---"A Streetcar Named Desire"
---"A Young Man's Fancy"

In 1947, in Hollywood:
---"Miracle on 34th Street" was popular!
---"Gentleman's Agreement", starring Gregory Peck and Dorothy McGuire, was the Academy Award winner for the best picture of the year!

In 1947, favorite songs from the hit parade:
---"Heartaches", Ted Weems and his orchestra
---"Near You"
---"Chi Baba, Chi Baba", Perry Como
---"Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah," Johnny Mercer
---"Bongo, Bongo, Bongo," Danny Kaye

In 1947, in Ranchvale, NM,
---Mil was learning to drive---out on the farm---anything that had wheels---car, tractor and wheat truck.
---He was riding combines during wheat harvest...often until midnight, helping all the farmers get their wheat to the elevator out West of town.

In 1947, in Clovis:
---The future CHS class of '53 was just now reaching Junior High.
---The future CHS Class of '51 was in the ninth grade.  Levi was driving now and thrilling everyone with his skills.
---Students did the "Mexican Hat Dance" in Miss MacFarland's Spanish musical.
---The '49ers---the CHS class of '49, were already juniors in high school!

It certainly has been fun chit-chatting with you about my favorite coin, and some slices of our history, which it helps to recall.  Sometime, when you are headed over this way, bring a Walking Liberty Half Dollar with you and we'll go down to that coffee place and talk about it.  It doesn't matter what date it has on it---any and all of them are reminders of the days of our lives and the life of our country.

****30****
BY MIL
4/23/13



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