1/2 Dollar - Elizabeth II John F. Kennedy: K

Issued as part of the Solomon Islands' ongoing program of commemorative circulation-format pieces, this coin marks Kennedy through the lens of a Pacific nation with direct historical ties to the man himself. In 1943, Lieutenant Kennedy's PT-109 was rammed and sunk by a Japanese destroyer in the waters of the Solomon Islands, and local islanders — notably Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana — rescued the surviving crew and carried Kennedy's distress message carved into a coconut to Allied forces.

That coconut later sat on Kennedy's Oval Office desk.