Hi, I found this coin in my dad's old coins and wondered if it was worth anything or just a keepsake type coin. It is a 1946 half dollar with Booker T. Washington on it. I have a couple pictures below. Thanks!
Go over to eBay and buy a half dollar size Air-tite capsule for it. That coin deserves it, especially since it was your Dad’s.
It's not a regular issue 1946 half dollar. Those were of the Walking Liberty type. What you have there is a special issue- a commemorative half dollar, honoring, as you noticed, Booker T. Washington. Yours is a 1946, from the first year they issued them. It lacks any "D" (Denver) or "S" (San Francisco) mintmark beneath the log cabin, so it's from Philadelphia (no mint mark). Here are the Numismedia trend prices for the 1946 (P) Booker T. Washington half dollar. I would grade your coin on the strong end of the Extremely Fine spectrum, and call it XF45. Grading opinions may vary- it's somewhere in the XF40 to AU50 range, I'd say, personally. It lists for $13 in XF40 on Numismedia. In strictly retail terms, I'd call it a $13-14 coin. These are fairly common as commemoratives go. Many were released into circulation, and yours was obviously one of those. But commemorative coins do tend to have much smaller mintages than regular issue coins. I agree with @Santinidollar. While this is not a supremely valuable coin, it is a worthy family keepsake.
Thank you very much for all of the information. I do plan on going on eBay and getting the capsule as I do want to keep it to pass down to my children with their coin collections. Thanks again everyone!
