I’m a horrible person, but this is so much fun. Once a month I visit all the banks in my area and grab whatever Eisenhower dollars or Kennedy halves they may have. Sometimes I hit, sometimes I don’t.
I keep all the Ikes but only keep the 90 or 40% JFKS (if I’m lucky). Here’s the fun part. Instead of returning the rest to the bank, I just use them to pay for all my normal daily activities.
Apparently most of the people in the service industry have never seen a JFK half. One guy at Chick-Fil-A took my JFK’s and asked me what they were. Another younger girl at Walgreens just stared at them trying to read the print and figure out their value. The best was an older Brazilian man working at BK looked puzzled and called his manager to ask what they were. He kept asking her “are these big quarters? Are these big quarters?”
My favorite is the look on my wife’s face when paid $37 at our local pharmacy using JFK halves. It seems like everywhere I go, paying with JFK’s causing confusion and curiosity.
The way I look at it is I am introducing them back into circulation and educating people about our historic coins.