The 1952 Washington-Carver half dollars mark the second year of four years for this multiple-year commemorative type. The obverse features -- jugate portrait of social-reform contemporaries Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver, the former an author and presidential advisor and the latter -- scientist and advisor. The coin was designed by Isaac Scott Hathaway, who became the first African American to design -- U.S. coin upon the release of the Booker T. Washington half dollar in 1946.

Washington-Carver halves were minted in Philadelphia, Denver, and San Francisco in 1952, and all of these pieces are considered quite common. They are especially so in uncirculated grades, with the vast majority encountered in the grades of MS62 through MS65. Examples grading MS66 are scarce and those in MS67 or higher are rare.