1938 50C Walking Liberty Half Dollar PCGS MS65

Ex. Guttag Family Collection. Link

Here’s a very affordable beauty to include in your collection. “The 1938 is the lowest mintage Philadelphia Mint Walking Liberty half dollar of the 1934 to 1946 time span,” writes David Hall. “It is rarer in uncirculated and Gem condition than the other P-Mints of those years. I certainly saw many more uncirculated rolls of the other P-Mints back in the 1970s than I did of the 1938. In fact, I probably only saw a few dozen BU rolls of 1938 Walkers while I literally saw hundreds and hundreds of rolls of the other dates.”

PCGS has graded 1,494 as MS65 with 957 finer. Collectors Universe gives this issue a price of $375.00 in MS65.

Continuing, Hall tells us, “The typical 1938 is well struck. It usually has either satiny white luster of a nice light golden color. This is an issue that does come nice.”

Bas-relief portrait of Adolph Weinman by Anthony de Francisci, 1915. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

Numismatic art critic and scholar Cornelius Vermeule writes of this beautiful coin, "The Liberty Walking half dollar ... really treat[s] the obverse and reverse as a surface sculptural ensemble. The Liberty Walking design particularly gives the true feeling for breadth and sculptural surfaces on the scale of a coin. These surfaces are formal, like a well-carved marble or precisely cast bronze relief for a war memorial .... the rising sun amid landscape anchors the motion of Liberty, her olive branch, and her starry cloak. On the reverse, the eagle standing on rocks with a gnarled tree at the left dominates but does not overwhelm the design. The working of the feathers is a miraculous coup de force ....”