Kennedy, Franklin, Washington and Roosevelt

Howdy Friends,

Well, I have been busy tracking down examples for my Kennedy, Franklin, Washington and Roosevelt registries and have secured some nice upgrades and a few new additions for my sets. It does not happen often but lately it seems that every bid I post ends up winning and as a result I have 13 new coins to spread over 4 sets. I have listed each below with mintages and NGC population numbers just for fun.

My proof Roosevelt registry received a 1956 PF68 Star example. There were 669,384 minted and less than 2,000 have been submitted to NGC for grading. Out of those, less than 180 have been given the Star designation in all grades and of those 49 have been graded in PF68 condition. This coin will also be added to a custom set called, My NGC All Stars, a collection of NGC Star and W designated coins, mostly half dollars.

My proof Washington registry will receive a 1963 PF69 example. There were 3,075,645 minted with 5,288 examples submitted to NGC for grading. 3,110 have been graded in proof condition with 485 of those in PF69 which represents the finest grade given by NGC for this date in proof condition.

Next is my mint state Franklin registry which will receive 2 upgrades and 3 new additions. When I started this set I wasn't very particular about what I was getting, as a result I ended up with a grab bag collection of coins with no real direction to the set. The upgrades will help me reconfigure the set to better reflect my interest in these coins which are Full Bell Lines.

There are four coins in this set that I wanted to upgrade, a 1955P in MS64 will be upgraded to MS64FBL and a 1953 D in MS63FBL will be upgraded to MS64FBL. There were 2,498,181 examples issued in 1955, to date 6500 have been submitted to NGC for grading of those 2045 received the FBL designation and 1259 of those were graded in MS64FBL condition.

The new additions are a 1948D, 1957D and 1961D all graded MS64FBL. In 1948 the Denver Mint issued over 4 million coins and about 3,400 have been submitted to NGC with 1,948 examples designated FBL and of those 1,030 coins graded in MS64FBL condition. In 1957 Denver issued almost 20 million coins and to date 4,218 have been submitted to NGC with 1,855 designated FBL and of those 1,010 have been graded in MS64FBL condition. In 1961 the Denver Mint issued over 20 million coins and to date 2,884 have been submitted to NGC of those 354 examples received the FBL designation and 244 graded in MS64FBL condition.

Finally, my Kennedy registry will receive 3 upgrades and 3 new additions. I have upgraded a 1976S Silver Bicentennial to MS67, a 1969S PF69 Star to PF69 Ultra Cameo and a 1997S Clad PF69UC to PF70UC. The 3 new additions are PF70UC Clad examples of the 1996S, 1998S and 1999S issues of which the mint produced about 2 to 2.5 million for each year, the 1996S Clad having the lowest NGC pop of the three at 184 in PF70UC condition.

For the Bicentennial the San Francisco mint produced 4,908,314 circulation issue half dollars and to date 1,127 examples have been submitted to NGC, of those 357 have been graded in MS67 condition. In 1969 San Francisco produced almost 3 million proof coins and to date 6,103 have been submitted to NGC and of those 789 examples were graded in PF69UC condition.

So for me, it has been a great couple of months on the coin collecting front and I am eager for the rest of the coins to arrive. The big freeze is causing some delays in shipping but that is to be expected with conditions the way they are.

Hope you all have a very happy and wonderful holiday season.

Take care,

Larry aka Merlin8*