50 Cent pieces/Dollars (<1987) -What was their use??

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I have always wondered why the RCM minted 50¢ pieces and the dollar coin (before 1987) for circulation. These coins were almost never seen in change and it has never happened to me or to anyone i know that was given a 50¢ coin in change. Before i started collecting i had never known that we had a 50¢ denomination until i purchased my first coin book. This made me wonder why the RCM continued circulating the 50¢ from 1870 all the way till 2002 and the voyageur dollar when we had the dollar bill circulating in the billions.

Back then, people could get them at their local bank if their bank chose to stock them. Few banks did, and the few that were willing to order them in did so for a very small amount of customers, like for the operators of the gaming tables at the Klondike Days festival in Edmonton. They always managed to have them. I remember seeing gaming tables full of 50¢ coins there when I was a kid in the early 80s.

Back when I was a kid ,the old man used to go to the LCBO for his weekend fix and would always get 50 cent pieces in the change...I always ended up getting them for doing chores....It's probably what started me collecting   the best part ...they were the silver ones.

Silver 50 cent coins were in quite widespread use in my part of Ontario in the 1950s and 1960s - and I am confident that was the case in earlier times although I wasn't here to see it, or was too little to pay much attention (mid-late 1940s).  In the business where I had my first summer job, a 50 cent piece was invariably paid out to customers - and employees - instead of two "quarters".  Silver dollars were always available at banks but did not circulate; they were used frequently as gifts and were in demand from collectors.

Silver 50 cent coins were in quite widespread use in my part of Ontario in the 1950s and 1960s

I guess it all depended on location. Here in Quebec i don't think they were ever used much.

I remember using nickel dollars and 50 cent pieces at the CNE games during the 1980s.  Once in a while, the attendant would give you your change and there would be a silver one in it.  I still have a 1953 50 cent piece I got at the Ex in 1987.  I kept it for purely sentimental reasons...

Dean