For some background, historically the half-dollar coin was fairly heavily used, but after Kennedy's assassination the conversion of the design to one featuring him led to a massive surge of interest in collection by people around the country. The Mint produced a huge (for the time) number of half-dollar coins to try to absorb the demand, but a large fraction of them seem to have been collected or hoarded, so that circulation plummeted. For production starting in 1966 the Mint switched from a 90% silver composition to a 40% in order to make it easier and cheaper to produce large numbers of coins. However, many still vanished into hoards and collections, and circulation remained low, inducing the Mint to keep production low in order to save silver. Eventually, after a few years of this they converted the half-dollar entirely to base metals like other American coins starting in 1971 and tried to restart usage of the half-dollar coin, but the damage was done: low circulation meant that banks and businesses had essentially given up the equipment needed to handle the half-dollar, and people were used to not using the half-dollar any longer. The coin continues to be struck up to the current day, with several billion having been produced over the past fifty years, but has been completely supplanted by the quarter as the standard "large-denomination" coin that most people encounter in day-to-day business.
So, my question is, what would happen if the Mint converted the half-dollar entirely to base metal from the beginning of 1966 onwards, instead of waiting until 1971 and, freed of the perceived need to maintain national silver supplies, continues minting them in large quantities (100s of millions of coins)? This does not seem so implausible to me given that it was obvious that there was enormous demand for the coin (the Mint had already increased the number of coins from an initially planned 90 million to some 430 million to handle interest) and that the dime and quarter were being converted to pure base metals at the same time. Converting the Kennedy half-dollar to base metals would help reduce speculation and hoarding by eliminating any interest in holding them for their silver value, while at the same time easing concerns over the quantity of silver being consumed to make a coin that wasn't circulating in the economy, allowing the Mint to produce more of them.
If this happens, it seems to me that hoarding demand would let up fairly soon just from pretty much everyone having their souvenir half-dollar, and they might start to get back into the economy in a serious way. If there's only a brief interruption in speculation thanks to the hoarding craze, then equipment like vending machines, cash registers, and the like will be a lot more likely to be able to handle half-dollars by the late 1960s and early 1970s, which in turn will make using the coins much more convenient than it actually was by the time that serious minting resumed. In this case, it might remain a fairly popular ordinary coin up to the present day, or even surpass the quarter thanks to inflation in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
So, my question is, what would happen if the Mint converted the half-dollar entirely to base metal from the beginning of 1966 onwards, instead of waiting until 1971 and, freed of the perceived need to maintain national silver supplies, continues minting them in large quantities (100s of millions of coins)? This does not seem so implausible to me given that it was obvious that there was enormous demand for the coin (the Mint had already increased the number of coins from an initially planned 90 million to some 430 million to handle interest) and that the dime and quarter were being converted to pure base metals at the same time. Converting the Kennedy half-dollar to base metals would help reduce speculation and hoarding by eliminating any interest in holding them for their silver value, while at the same time easing concerns over the quantity of silver being consumed to make a coin that wasn't circulating in the economy, allowing the Mint to produce more of them.
If this happens, it seems to me that hoarding demand would let up fairly soon just from pretty much everyone having their souvenir half-dollar, and they might start to get back into the economy in a serious way. If there's only a brief interruption in speculation thanks to the hoarding craze, then equipment like vending machines, cash registers, and the like will be a lot more likely to be able to handle half-dollars by the late 1960s and early 1970s, which in turn will make using the coins much more convenient than it actually was by the time that serious minting resumed. In this case, it might remain a fairly popular ordinary coin up to the present day, or even surpass the quarter thanks to inflation in the late 1970s and early 1980s.