Owner Comments:
Circulation strike mintage 2,151,000
Bucking the trend of the typical SOFT struck 1946-D, I sought one with above average sharpness. Extensive cherrypicking was necessary, but I found a CAC-stickered 1946-D for PQ eye appeal !
The blast white fully mint luster on both the obverse and reverse cannot be overstated in this coin! It is so fully blast white and lustrous, the photos taken with my camera cannot take an accurate image without the blinding light effect seen in these photos.
On the obverse, with almost full head details, full skirt-lines and 70% of left hand details present, this is a fantastic strike.
Though the strike on the reverse is not as sharp and shows a flat area on the breast, most of the left leg feathers are full and present.
Numismatic News: With the relatively low mintage, one would think that finding a mint state coin would be rare. Had the same available mintage been the case 20-30 years earlier, a mint state coin would indeed be considered a rarity. However, there were thousands of collectors saving new examples of each United States coin by 1946. Thus, the 1946-D half dollar is plentiful through MS-66. In addition, with the three U. S. mints working with post-war low budgets, the dies were often run far too long, resulting in soft strikes with well struck coins from fresh dies existing, but relatively rare.