½ Dollar – United States

In 1964, the United States stood at the monetary crossroads between a commodity-backed currency and a purely fiat system. The official currency was still the Silver Certificate, with the familiar "ONE DOLLAR" note explicitly stating it was redeemable "in silver on demand" at the U.S. Treasury. This promise was backed by a substantial physical stockpile of silver bullion, a legacy of centuries of bimetallism. Coins, crucially, contained intrinsic value: dimes and quarters were 90% silver, and even the ubiquitous Kennedy half-dollar (first minted in 1964 as a memorial to the assassinated president) was minted in 90% silver for that year.

However, this system was under immense strain due to the rising market price of silver, which began to exceed the face value of the coins. This created a powerful economic incentive for individuals to hoard or even melt down coins for their bullion value, threatening to remove them from circulation entirely—a classic example of Gresham's Law, where "bad" money (less intrinsic value) drives out "good." The Treasury faced a looming shortage of circulating coinage and the unsustainable depletion of the government's strategic silver reserves.

Consequently, 1964 was the final year of truly silver circulating coinage for dimes and quarters, though the half-dollar's silver content would be reduced in 1965 and phased out by 1971. Congress had already passed the Coinage Act of 1965, which would take effect the following year, authorizing the production of copper-nickel "clad" coins for dimes and quarters and eliminating silver from most new circulating currency. Thus, 1964 marked the end of an era, as the U.S. consciously moved toward a fiduciary coinage system where the value was based solely on government mandate rather than precious metal content, a necessary step in the transition to the fully fiat currency system of today.