Expert: PAPAJACK - 9/7/2007

Question
 I was wondering if you could tell me what this is. I have a 1996 Kennedy half dollar, that when dropped on a counter it sounds like wood or clay.  It doesn't have any errors on either side, although when comparing with another half dollar, putting the heads side by side face up, if you turn it over the strange sounding one is upsidown.  are there other coins like this and does it have any value? thank you very much

Answer
Hello Lyndsi,                                

This sounds like an altered coin.

There are not any sales records I found of a rotated die 1996 Kennedy half dollar.
I have seen many two-headed half dollars lately and this would be made the same way. Yours might have been put back together with a heads and tails rotated instead of another Heads side.  The ones I have come across are machined out on one side carefully keeping the reeded edge intact, while another coin is thinned and slightly reduced in diameter to remove the reeded edge. The smaller and thinner half is then placed in the hollowed out half coin.
Look with a good magnifier and light source, where the lower field on one side of the coin, meets up to the reeded edge. They can be force fit or glued together. Another check is weight; an actual Half dollar blank weighs 11.34 grams.

Altered coins have no value except for the novelty of it. Less than a dollar.

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Thank You and Good Luck

PapaJack