LITERAL ONE OF ITS KIND COIN as its the only one of its kind and it will go to a major auction house if it doesn’t sell before it is time for promoting its existence to the collector community.
This coin was struck through a fiber or hair that was on the blank or the engraved die and the impression of that fiber or hair was transferred onto this coin. The 5th picture in this listing shows where the coin was struck through and is plainly visible in the photos and more so in person.
This 1964 Kennedy half dollar is a stunning proof coin with a grade of PF 68 and a beautiful cameo accent on the hair. It has been certified by NGC and has a certification number of6522939-006. This coin is made of silver and has a graded case from NGC marked “Mint PF 68 Cameo Reverse Struck Thru”
The coin was struck in Philadelphia and is uncirculated. It has a denomination of one half dollar and belongs to the Kennedy series, specifically the half dollar category. This particular coin has an interesting variety, with an error “Reverse Struck Through”. Overall, this is a rare and valuable coin for any collector. the number of “Mint Error” 1964 Kennedy Accent Hair Half Dollar PF 68 Cameo is this one at the time of creating this listing. There are no other graded mint error coins in this variety it is as of the day of making this listing the only coin in existence graded PF 68 Cameo “Mint Error” I’ve never seen another in any grade and they don’t exist according to the coin price guides and coin variety population guides. There’s no category for this any where so of course I have spent more than a year researching and submitting this coin to the major market players just to get the existence known.
I first saw this coin and assumed it was a grading company mistake and had been mis-slabbed because coins are mis-slabbed more often than coins are errored and then overlooked and released by the United States Mint to the coin collector community. There are certain coins, where a mint air is extremely common for certain years, but this coin is not one of them.
As the saying goes “It’s worth what someone is willing to pay” of course I have been collecting this variation of the Kennedy half dollar for 30 years and the price has exploded in the last 10 years. The first graded accent hair I bought cost me $25 and was a PF67 deep cameo. That was all I could afford and I remember seeing PF 65-PF68 ultra cameo’s as commonly as I see PF 68 now at that time there was a Deep Cameo, Cameo, and Ultra Cameo available on the PF65-PF67 at any given time I began collecting the deep cameo’s because of affordability and with in 3 years Ultra Cameo became rare and hard to find the way Deep Cameo is nowadays. The deep cameos were as common as the cameo is now and that’s only because the dealers are just now submitting the 1964 proof sets to be graded 100 at a time. Soon they will all be graded and on the market then they will disappear just as the ultra cameos have disappeared from the market.
I Have talked with the major auction houses about consignment on this coin and initial values have been stated as $5,000-$50,000. After extensive online searches a general value from NGC of $8,000 was quoted.
I’ve been instructed by the auction houses that the absolute minimum value is $5,000. Recent realized prices for the PF68 cameo without the “Mint Error” are $1640-$4600.
This truly is a one of a kind as currently there are no other “mint error” accent hair Kennedy’s in graded slabs. There’s been a rush of 1964 proof kennedy’s being submitted to NGC & PCGS as coin collectors and coin shops across the country learn about the accent hair Kennedy. I have been collecting the accent hair since I was 14 years old but 10 years ago was surprised to find out that the local coin shops around me had never heard of the accent hair Kennedy and not wanting to admit that there was a rare US coin they had no knowledge of in existence they tried to tell me that it was an error coin and I still hear it described that way today by dealers that don’t know what the story is about the creation of the accent hair.
After Kennedy was assassinated there was huge pressure to get the Kennedy half dollar design completed. American’s loved Kennedy and the thought was that his face on a coin would immortalize him and satisfy the people hurting from the loss of a great president. In the rush to complete the coin there were many mistakes (those mistakes are now identifiers of the accent hair variation) and upon presentation of the struck Kennedy half dollar to Jackie Kennedy and Kennedy’s mother the comment was made by one of those two that Kennedy looked like he needed a haircut on the coin. To satisfy the grieving family the engraver was contacted to do something about the hairline and give Kennedy a haircut in the design, the engraver was happy to be given more time to perfect the die as he was rushed into submitting the engraving and since the submission was aware of minor mistakes that were easy to fix like the straight 9, corners of the I in the words “In God We Trust”, the straight G in the engravers own initials, sun rays on reverse that were mis-aligned and of course the accented hairs on Kennedy were all fixed by the engraver and resubmitted for final submission and approval.
Not many coins are sent back to the engraver after a minting period of a coin and there’s no documentation of when the engraver completed the final submission or how many dies were created from the previous submission but it’s believed that as many as 150,000 accent hair Kennedy half dollars were struck with the original 1st final submitted design before it was altered to satisfy the grieving family of our assasinated president.
Many people have tried to pass accented hair Kennedy’s from years other than the 1st year of production and unintentionally last year US coins were struck with 90% silver planchets. Not knowing that it was an actual physical change to the engraving that created the accent hair variation not a deep strike or double strike as it’s sometimes described.
I’ve heard that many times as well that the hair is accented because of a deeper strike or newer die allowing for excessive markings in the hairline but no those are all rumors and assumptions. The accent hair Kennedy is a completely unique engraving from the very first Kennedy half dollars struck by American Mints. So the first proofs which was the most demanded strike in 1964 were accent hair variation and from there when the original dies were running out it created another variation with accent hair on one side and a replaced new designed die which is the current Kennedy half dollar on the other side finally ending with 100% the current design when the mint had no more of the very 1st dies created before the engraver fixed the mistakes and gave Kennedy a haircut.