1916-S Walking Liberty Half Dollar

Key date

The lowest mintage of the first year and one of the recognised keys of the series. San Francisco struck it in small numbers and it circulated hard, so it is scarce in every grade and genuinely difficult in mint state.

Mintage

Business strikes: 508,000
Mint: San Francisco (S)
Mintage rank: 4 of 65

Rank 1 is the lowest business-strike mintage in the series. Mintage is what the Mint produced, not what survives. These circulated as money through two world wars and the Depression, and large quantities were later melted for their silver, none of it recorded by date.

Reading the figure

It is the smallest of the 24 San Francisco issues in the series. Of the 2,130,400 struck across all mints in 1916, this issue accounts for 24%. Denver struck 2 times as many that year. The 1916 split ran Denver 1,014,400, Philadelphia 608,000 and San Francisco 508,000. The series median is 4,094,000, so fewer than half as many of these were struck as a typical date.

Every sentence above is computed from the mintage table on this page, not asserted separately.

Scarcity tier

Key date

Assigned from reported mintage alone: under 750,000 is a key date, under 2,500,000 is a semi-key.

This is a reproducible label derived from the mintage column, not a market valuation and not a Coin Curator price opinion. The same thresholds apply to every series on this site. Several dates are far harder or far easier to obtain than their mintage implies; where that is true, it is stated above.

Weak strike is not wear. Walking Liberty half dollars are chronically weakly struck, especially the branch-mint issues of 1917-1929. Read the full note on the series page.

What to check before buying

Specific to the 1916-S:

1Confirm where the mintmark sits before judging the coin: 1916 and the early 1917 issues carry it on the obverse below IN GOD WE TRUST, everything later carries it on the reverse at lower left. A listing that describes the wrong position is describing a different issue.

And for any certified coin

Verify the certification number on the grading service’s own lookup rather than from a photograph of the label, match the listing images to the certification record including grade and any variety attribution, look for cleaning, compare the mintmark against published photographs of the genuine issue, and read the return policy before buying. The grading guide covers each of these in full.

Coin Curator does not grade, authenticate, or appraise coins, and publishes no price or population data. These are verification steps, not a valuation.

Verify a certification number

Look a 1916-Scertification number up on the service’s own site. A photograph of a label proves nothing.

PCGS cert lookup NGC cert lookup ANACS cert lookup

Each service publishes its own guarantee with conditions and exclusions. Compare PCGS, NGC and ANACS.

Find a 1916-S for sale

Opens an eBay search for this exact date and mint. Coin Curator does not list inventory, hold stock, or quote prices; verify each listing, seller, and return policy directly.

Affiliate link: Coin Curator may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Disclosure.

Search eBay for 1916-S

Common questions

How many 1916-S Walking Liberty half dollars were minted?

The San Francisco Mint struck 508,000 1916-S Walking Liberty half dollars for circulation. That is the 4th lowest business-strike mintage of the 65 date and mintmark combinations in the series.

Is the 1916-S Walking Liberty half dollar a key date?

Coin Curator labels it a key date, assigned from reported mintage alone: under 750,000 struck is a key date and under 2,500,000 is a semi-key. The same thresholds are used for every series on this site, so the tiers are comparable between them. That label describes production, not market value or how hard the coin is to find today. The lowest mintage of the first year and one of the recognised keys of the series. San Francisco struck it in small numbers and it circulated hard, so it is scarce in every grade and genuinely difficult in mint state.

What should I check before buying a 1916-S Walking Liberty half dollar?

Verify the certification number on the grading service's own lookup page, match the listing photographs to the certification record, check for cleaning, and compare the mintmark shape and position against published photographs of the genuine issue. Confirm where the mintmark sits before judging the coin: 1916 and the early 1917 issues carry it on the obverse below IN GOD WE TRUST, everything later carries it on the reverse at lower left. A listing that describes the wrong position is describing a different issue.

Guides for this coin

All guides →

Practical Guide

Walking Liberty Set Building

A multi-decade Adolph A. Weinman series with meaningful date, mint, strike, and condition challenges. Build a coin-by-coin research plan.

1 min read Market Context

Junk Silver vs Graded Silver: Which Is the Better Hold?

Pre-1965 US silver coins (junk silver) trade on melt value plus a small premium. Graded examples of the same coins trade on numismatics. Which strategy actually wins long-term?

1 min read Education

What Makes a Coin a “Key Date”, and Why It Drives Value

Coins from the same series can differ sharply in availability and demand. Learn how date, mintmark, variety, grade, and surfaces shape key-date research.

1 min read Buying Guide

Approachable Key-Date Coins to Research First

Seven dates that teach scarcity, identification, grade tradeoffs, and counterfeit-aware buying, without promising a fixed price or resale result.

1 min read

Mintage sources

Mintage figures are U.S. Mint production records, cross-checked against the published tables below on 2026-07-31. Where those tables disagree, the disagreement is disclosed on the affected page rather than resolved silently.

CoinMintages.com, Walking Liberty half dollar mintages — Reports the 1917 obverse and reverse mintmark issues separately, and lists proofs by year.
LandOfCoins, Walking Liberty half dollar mintage — Independent table carrying business strikes and proofs in separate columns. Agrees on all 65 issues.
Wikipedia, "Walking Liberty half dollar" — No mintage table, but states a series proof total of 74,400, which matches the sum of the seven reported proof figures.

Spotted an error? Submit a correction.