The 'electrifying' Barber half dollar

Minted from 1892 to 1915, the Barber half dollar failed to win acclaim in its own time. But it held up well in circulation and was easy for the Mint to strike. Eventually collectors took a closer look at the design and began to appreciate its beauty. In Numismatic Art in America, Cornelius Vermeule went so far as to describe Barber’s Liberty Head as an “almost electrifying” experience. It’s a wonder the Barber half dollar made it into production at all. During the Civil War, the government stopped paying out gold and silver coins and instead relied on paper money. Coins disappeared from circulation and went into private hoards.Many coins were melted after the war. Others were shipped to buyers in Europe. When the U.S. government resumed specie payments in 1877, silver coins made a comeback. There was such a glut of silver coins that merchants demanded the Mint stop striking them.

Half dollars were not eliminated entirely, but few were struck in the 1880s. Annual production in the decade never reached 13,000 half dollars.

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