1963 Benjamin Franklin Silver Half Dollar United States Coin Liberty Bell i44586

Item: i44586

 Authentic Coin of:

United States of America
Benjamin Franklin Liberty Bell Half Dollar Silver Coin
Silver Half Dollar 30mm  This coin is 90% silver, and 10%
copper.
LIBERTY IN GOD WE TRUST 1963, Bust of Benjamin Franklin right.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA HALF DOLLAR, Liberty Bell, American Eagle in field to
right, facing, head left, wings open; E PLURIBUS UNUM in field to left.

A beautiful coin illustrating
true U.S. Constitutional currency which defined the dollar as a quantity of
silver. What is interesting to note is that United States of America coins,
which were dimes, quarters, half dollars and dollars were made of silver until
1964 as per the mandate of the 1792 Coinage Act. The advantage of currency
backed by precious metals being a medium of exchange that maintains and perhaps
even gains buying power over time. There was little or no inflation when the
ideals of the founding fathers were followed. The idea of paper money was a
piece of paper which was exchangeable for coins at any time. It allowed you to
easily transport your money without having to carry the weight of the gold
silver and non-precious metal USA coins.

Article I, Section. 10 of
U.S. Constitution

“No State shall enter into any
Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin
Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin as Tender
in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law
impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.”

It is also interesting to note
that silver is an industrial metal and supplies are being used up at rapid
rates. Silver coins were placed in jugs of water as per it’s anti-microbial
properties. Also when cows were milked, many used or still use silver pails to
catch the milk. Silver is also used in electronics as it is non-corrosive.
Another interesting thing was that at times in history, American people were
actually able to bring their silver to the U.S. mint and get silver coins in
exchange.

The great idea of money is for
it to be plentiful to allow for easy exchange. You see, contrary to popular
belief, US money, even with the 1792 Coinage Act did have what may be described
as fiat, or coins of non-precious metal. The 1 Cent or Penny Coins were made of
copper and the 5 Cent or Nickel coins were made of nickel. However, the
brilliant thing is that the copper and nickel coins were exchangeable for silver
and gold coins. So because of this, there was gold and silver backing, in effect
for the copper and nickel coins. So the amazing thing is that there was
plentiful money, which was issued constantly and did not bear any interest for
it’s use.

So in conclusion, money is an
interesting topic of discussion and study. It can both free and enslave and
there is a lot of good in all types of systems. What is also amazing is that the
money of the United States has the words “In God We Trust”. This makes this
phrase the most written phrase in existence. The more we love people and use
money as a tool for their benefit, the better the world is becoming. We live in
an amazing time and world where we are connected via the internet and where the
best ideas are winning.

Two great documentary films to
watch on this topic is Money Masters and The Secret of Oz.

You are bidding on the exact

Guarantee of Authenticity.

The Franklin
half dollar  is a
coin
that was struck by the
United States Mint
(“Mint”) from 1948 to 1963.
The
fifty-cent piece
pictures
Founding Father

Benjamin Franklin
on the
obverse
and the
Liberty Bell
on the reverse. A small eagle was
placed to the right of the bell to fulfill the legal requirement that half
dollars depict the figure of an eagle. Produced in 90 percent silver with a
reeded edge
, the coin was struck at the
Philadelphia
,
Denver
, and
San Francisco
mints.

Mint director
Nellie Tayloe Ross
had long admired Franklin,
and wanted him to be depicted on a coin. In 1947, she instructed the Mint’s
chief engraver,
John R. Sinnock
, to prepare designs for a
Franklin half dollar. Sinnock’s designs were based on his earlier work, but he
died before their completion. The designs were completed by Sinnock’s successor,
Gilroy Roberts
. The Mint submitted the new
designs to the
Commission of Fine Arts
(“Commission”) for its
advisory opinion. The Commission disliked the small eagle and felt that
depicting the crack in the Liberty Bell would expose the coinage to jokes and
ridicule. Despite the Commission’s disapproval, the Mint proceeded with
Sinnock’s designs.

After the coins were released in April 1948, the Mint received accusations
that Sinnock’s initials “JRS” on the cutoff at Franklin’s shoulder were a
tribute to Soviet dictator
Joseph Stalin
. No change was made, with the
Mint responding that the letters were simply the artist’s initials. The coin was
struck regularly until 1963; beginning in 1964 it was replaced by the
Kennedy half dollar
, issued in honor of the
assassinated President,
John F. Kennedy
. Though the coin is still
legal tender
, its face value is greatly
exceeded by its value to collectors or as silver.

Benjamin Franklin
FRS
(January 17, 1706 – April 17, 1790) was one
of the
Founding Fathers of the United States
and in
many ways was “the First American”. A world-renowned
polymath
, Franklin was a leading author,
printer,
political theorist
, politician, postmaster,
scientist, inventor, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat. As a scientist, he
was a major figure in the
American Enlightenment
and the
history of physics
for his discoveries and
theories regarding electricity. As an inventor, he is known for the
lightning rod
,
bifocals
, and the
Franklin stove
, among other inventions. He
facilitated many civic organizations, including Philadelphia’s fire department
and a university.

Franklin
earned the title of “The First American” for his early and indefatigable
campaigning for
colonial unity
; as an author and spokesman in
London for several colonies, then as the first
United States Ambassador to France
, he
exemplified the emerging American nation. Franklin was foundational in defining
the American ethos as a marriage of the practical values of thrift, hard work,
education, community spirit, self-governing institutions, and opposition to
authoritarianism both political and religious, with the scientific and tolerant
values of the
Enlightenment
. In the words of historian
Henry Steele Commager
, “In a Franklin could be
merged the virtues of
Puritanism
without its defects, the
illumination of the Enlightenment without its heat.” To
Walter Isaacson
, this makes Franklin “the most
accomplished American of his age and the most influential in inventing the type
of society America would become.”

Franklin, always proud of his working class roots, became a successful
newspaper editor and printer in
Philadelphia
, the leading city in the colonies.
With two partners he published the
Pennsylvania Chronicle
, a newspaper that
was known for its revolutionary sentiments and criticisms of the British
policies. He became wealthy publishing
Poor Richard’s Almanack
and
The Pennsylvania Gazette
. Franklin was also
the printer of books for the Moravians of
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
(1742 on). Franklin’s
printed Moravian books (printed in German) are preserved, and can be viewed, at
the Moravian Archives located in Bethlehem. Franklin visited Bethlehem many
times and stayed at the
Moravian Sun Inn
.

He played a major role in establishing the
University of Pennsylvania
and was elected the
first president of the
American Philosophical Society
. Franklin became
a national hero in America when as agent for several colonies he spearheaded the
effort to have Parliament in London repeal the unpopular
Stamp Act
. An accomplished diplomat, he was
widely admired among the French as American minister to Paris and was a major
figure in the development of positive
Franco-American relations
. His efforts to
secure support for the
American Revolution
by shipments of crucial
munitions proved vital for the American war effort.

For many years he was the British postmaster for the colonies, which enabled
him to set up the first national communications network. He was active in
community affairs, colonial and state politics, as well as national and
international affairs. From 1785 to 1788, he served as
governor of Pennsylvania
. Toward the end of his
life, he freed his own slaves and became one of the most prominent
abolitionists
.

His colorful life and legacy of scientific and political achievement, and
status as one of America’s most influential Founding Fathers, have seen Franklin
honored on coinage and the
$100 bill
;
warships
,
the names of many towns
, counties, educational
institutions, namesakes, and companies, and, more than two centuries after his
death, countless
cultural references
.

The Liberty Bell
is an iconic symbol of
American independence
, located in
Philadelphia
,
Pennsylvania
. Formerly placed in the steeple of
the Pennsylvania State House (now renamed
Independence Hall
), the bell today is located
in the
Liberty Bell Pavilion
in
Independence National Historic Park
. The bell
was commissioned from the London firm of Lester and Pack (today the
Whitechapel Bell Foundry
) in 1752, and
was cast
with the lettering (part of
Leviticus
25:10) “Proclaim LIBERTY
throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.” It originally cracked
when first rung after arrival in Philadelphia, and was twice recast by local
workmen John Pass and John Stow, whose last names appear on the bell. In its
early years, the Liberty Bell was used to summon lawmakers to legislative
sessions and to alert citizens to public meetings and proclamations.

No immediate announcement was made of the
Second Continental Congress
‘s vote for
independence, and thus the bell could not have rung on July 4, 1776, at least
not for any reason related to that vote. Bells were rung to mark the reading of
the Declaration of Independence
on July 8,
1776, and while there is no contemporary account of the Liberty Bell ringing,
most historians believe it was one of the bells rung. After American
independence was secured, it fell into relative obscurity for some years. In the
1830s, the bell was adopted as a symbol by
abolitionist
societies, who dubbed it the
“Liberty Bell.” It acquired its distinctive large crack sometime in the early
19th century—a widespread story claims it cracked while ringing after the death
of
Chief Justice

John Marshall
in 1835.

The bell became famous after an 1847 short story claimed that an aged
bell-ringer rang it on July 4, 1776, upon hearing of the
Second Continental Congress
‘s vote for
independence. Despite the fact that the bell did not ring for independence on
that July 4, the tale was widely accepted as fact, even by some historians.
Beginning in 1885, the City of Philadelphia, which owns the bell, allowed it to
go to various expositions and patriotic gatherings. The bell attracted huge
crowds wherever it went, additional cracking occurred and pieces were chipped
away by souvenir hunters. The last such journey occurred in 1915, after which
the city refused further requests.

After World War II, the city allowed the
National Park Service
to take custody of the
bell, while retaining ownership. The bell was used as a symbol of freedom during
the Cold War
and was a popular site for protests in
the 1960s. It was moved from its longtime home in Independence Hall to a nearby
glass pavilion on
Independence Mall
in 1976, and then to the
larger Liberty Bell Center adjacent to the pavilion in 2003. The bell has been
featured on coins and stamps, and its name and image have been widely used by
corporations.

The Coinage Act
 or the Mint Act, passed by the
United States Congress
on April 2, 1792,
established the
United States Mint
and regulated the coinage of
the United States. The long title of the legislation is An act establishing a
mint, and regulating the Coins of the United States. This act established
the silver
dollar
as the unit of money in the United
States, declared it to be lawful tender, and created a
decimal
system for U.S. currency.

By the Act, the Mint was to be situated at the
seat of government
of the United States. The
five original officers of the U.S. Mint were a Director, an Assayer, a Chief
Coiner, an Engraver, and a
Treasurer
(not the same as the
Secretary of the Treasury
). The Act allowed
that one person could perform the functions of Chief Coiner and Engraver. The
Assayer, Chief Coiner and Treasurer were required to post a $10,000 bond with
the Secretary of the Treasury.

Although some of the provisions in the 1792 Coinage Act were adjusted as time
went by, the majority of the rules specified in this Act remained in effect for
many decades. Essentially, it provided the basic framework on which all
subsequent coinage production was based. While the first draft of the Act
stipulated that all coins would employ a portrait of the president on the
obverse, the final version called for an image emblematic of liberty. The Act
also authorized construction of a
mint building in Philadelphia
, the nation’s
capital. This was the first federal building erected under the
United States Constitution
. Mint director
David Rittenhouse
laid the building’s
cornerstone
on July 31.

On May 8, 1792 An Act to Provide For a Copper Coinage was signed into
law by President
George Washington
. This legislation resulted in
the birth of the copper cent, from which descends today’s one cent piece. The
Act also stipulated that “the director of the mint… be authorized to contract
for and purchase a quantity of copper, not exceeding one hundred and fifty
tons… to be coined at the mint into cents and half-cents… and be paid into
the treasury of the United States, thence to issue into circulation.”
Furthermore, “no copper coins or pieces whatsoever except the said cents and
half-cents, shall pass current as money, or shall be paid, or offered to be paid
or received in payment for any debt, demand, claims, matter or thing
whatsoever.”

Effects

Merchants and bankers were reluctant to bring silver bullion to the Mint
because the disclosure of the illegal silver standard that was previously in
effect. The silver coinage of 1794 and 1795 employed a 0.900 fine standard
instead of the 0.8924+ standard (317.25/416=0.89242788461) as prescribed in the
Mint Act of April 2, 1792 (Heritage Coin Auction #390, Vol III, p. 117). The
most immediate effect of this practice was that depositors ended up paying an
addition 2.5 grams of silver bullion (about 10% extra) for every dollar they
received (Taxay, 1966, p. 89). When this became widely known, bullion deposits
brought to the mint declined significantly in 1796 and 1797.

Authorization
and free coinage

The Act authorized production of the following coins:

The coins were to contain the following markings:

• One side was to have an impression emblematic of liberty, with the
  inscription “Liberty”, and the year of the coinage.
• The reverse side of each of the gold and silver coins was to have the
  figure or representation of an eagle with the inscription “UNITED
  STATES OF AMERICA.”
• The reverse of the copper coins was to have an inscription expressing
  the denomination.

The Act defined the proportional value of gold and silver as 15 units of pure
silver to 1 unit of pure gold. Standard gold was defined as 11 parts pure gold
to one part alloy composed of silver and copper. Standard silver was defined as
1485 parts pure silver to 179 parts copper alloy. The Act also specified the
dollar as the “money of account” of the United States, and directed that all
accounts of the federal government be kept in dollars, “dismes“,
cents
, and “milles“,
a mille being one-tenth of a cent or one-thousandth of a dollar. The silver
content of a dollar under this act was almost exactly equal to ¹/₅
of the silver content of the contemporary British
pound sterling
, or 4 British shillings.

Under
Sec.14
, any person could bring gold or silver
bullion and have it coined free of charge, or later for a small fee, exchange it
immediately for an equivalent value of coin. The paragraph summary states:
“Persons may bring gold and silver bullion, to be coined free of expense;”

Quality control
measures were implemented in
that from each separate mass of gold or silver used to produce coins, three
coins were set aside by the treasurer. Each year on the last Monday in July,
under the inspection of the
Chief Justice
, the Secretary and Comptroller of
the Treasury, the
Secretary of State
, and the
Attorney General
, the coins were to be
assayed
and if the coins did not meet
established standards, the officers were disqualified from office. The meetings
later became formalized as the
United States Assay Commission
, which continued
meeting until it was disbanded in 1980.

Section 19 of the Act established a penalty of death for debasing the gold or
silver coins authorized by the Act, or embezzlement of the metals for those
coins, by officers or employees of the mint; this section of the Act apparently
remains in effect and would, in theory, continue to apply in the case of “any of
the gold or silver coins which shall be struck or coined at the said mint.” (At
present the only gold or silver coins struck by the US mint are the
American Silver Eagle
and the
American Gold Eagle
coins, some
Proof coinage
at the
San Francisco Mint
, such as the silver
US State Quarters
, and much of the
Commemorative coinage of the United States
.)
All other sections of the act have been superseded, as for example the
Coinage Act of 1834
changing the silver-to-gold
weight ratio. Various acts have subsequently been passed affecting the amount
and type of metal in U. S. coins, so that today there is no legal definition of
the term “dollar” to be found in U. S. statute. Current statutes regulating
coinage in the United States may be found in
Title 31 of the United States Code
.

See also

• Coinage Act of 1834
• Coinage Act of 1849
• Coinage Act of 1857
• Coinage Act of 1864
• Coinage Act of 1873
• Coinage Act of 1965
• Mill (currency)