Never seen a half-dollar coin. It has never occurred to me whether there are half-dollar coins in America until my cousin, a would-be magician, asked me about it and told me there actually were.
Half-dollar coin has been produced nearly every year since the inception of the United States Mint in 1794. However, its circulation was obviously very restricted, in casinos and movie theatres in old days but nowhere nowadays. Only the Kennedy halves were hoarded for sentimental reasons.
Besides that reason, halves are commonly used by Sleight-of-hand magicians who specialize in coin magic because of its size and weight.
It is understandable why my cousin needs it and why I cannot find it anywhere. Now it turned out to be a tough task for me to find 15 half-dollar coins for my magician cousin.
Is there anyone who can tell me how I can find half-dollar coins?
A World without Gaps 
Ask at your local bank for half-dollars. I get them from my bank and use them all the time.
Half-dollars circulated up until the early 1960s, although not as common as other coins. Then silver coins started disappearing from circulation due to the price of silver. Once President Kennedy was put on the coin in 1964, people hoarded the coins. And since half-dollars still contained 40% silver until 1971, this contributed to them being less-used in everyday commerce. Once people got used to not seeing them, they became a “collector’s item” and treated as special.
I love them and like to use them every day.
Paul
If you ask a teller at a bank if they have any half dollars more than likely you’ll be told “no”. However if you’re persistent and ask if any of the other tellers have any, you might get lucky.
If all else fails you can order a box of halves from your bank for $500. Pull out however many you need and then sell the box back to the bank. OR you might consider hunting the rest of the box for Silver Half Dollars.
There’s a whole hobby associated with hunting coin rolls. (See link in my name)
Until now I got only one, which came from a grocery store of my roommate’s cousin. She said that half-dollar coin appeared very occasionally, but it did appear.
Hunting in banks turned out to be resultless. I tried a few banks and all the tellers’, in vain. They told me that I had to be consistent, since who knows when Dear Kenny might pop out.
Order a box of halves for $500? My cousin said “Forget it, then.”
Don’t be scared of the $ amount. If you order a box of halves from the bank for $500 they’ll give you a box with 1000 half dollars in it.
You’re not actually spending anything. You’re exchanging $500 for $500. Then after searching through the box you take the ones that you don’t want back to the bank and exchange them back into whatever denomination you want be it cash or another box of halves.