On November 22, 1963, during a presidential motorcade in downtown Dallas, Texas, Lee Harvey Oswald shot the President John Fitzgerald Kennedy in his neck and he died soon afterward. On that same day, after hearing the sad news, the current director of the mint, Ava Adams made a phone call to the chief engraver of the mint, Gilroy Roberts to talk about the plans of putting the assassinated president on either a quarter which currently depicted Washington, half-dollar with Benjamin Frankin, or a dollar coin on which was currently the peace design. After talking with the deceased Kennedys wife, Jaqueline, Jaqueline had said that she would prefer him to be depicted on a half dollar. Shortly after this, many letters were received asking for a coin to honor him, and the chief engraver took Kennedys inaugural medal, and with several changes, both minor and major, it was ready to be depicted on the half-dollar. The assistant engraver, Frank Gasparro, engraved the reverse, which shows the Great Seal of the United States. In the middle of December, Jaqueline reviewed the designs and stated that she did not like how the hair was shown, so that was reworked to a layout that she liked. A little after one month from his death, congress approved the coin. It needed to be approved by congress because its design had not been in use for over 25 years. If a coins design has been in use over 25 years, the Secretary of the Treasury can authorize a change without consent by congress. By the time congress passed the law on December 30, 1963, dies had already been sent to the Denver Mint because of such high anticipation of congress approving the production.
On March 24, 1964, the coins were to be released. 70,000 coins had been approved for public sale and a limit of forty half dollars per person. Even though they were going to be released on the 24th of March, the day before, on March 23, long lines had already wrapped around the blocks which the distribution centers were located on. The people in the lines were full of anticipation to purchase half dollars commemorating the deceased president, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, and by the end of the day, the coins were sold out.
The United States Mint was originally planning on minting 91 million half dollars that year from all of the mints combined, but the supply ran dry, and they were still not circulating, so the treasury had to increase the maximum mintage to the large amount of 141 million coins, 50 million more than the treasury assumed would be needed. There was still not a sign of the coins in circulation due to the immense hoarding. By the end of the year, 160 million half dollars had been minted, but there was still an overwhelming and endless demand for the halves. The treasury requested congress if they could mint 1965 coins dated 1964 to help satisfy the strong demand, and by the time 1965 came to an end, almost 430 million halves here existent which were dated 1964. As a comparison, this is more half dollars then all of the Benjamin Franklin Half Dollars in existence!
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