United States Mint

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Seal of the U.S. Mint

The United States Mint primarily produces circulating coinage for the United States to conduct its trade and commerce. The main Mint facility is located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and branch facilities are located in Denver, Colorado, San Francisco, California, and West Point, New York.

The Mint was created by Congress with the Coinage Act of 1792, and placed within the Department of State. Per the terms of the Coinage Act, the first Mint building was located in Philadelphia, then the U.S. capital. It was the first building of the federation raised under the Constitution.

The Mint's first director was renowned scientist David Rittenhouse. The position is currently held by Edmund C. Moy. Henry Voight was the first Superintendent and Chief Coiner, and is credited with some of the first U.S. coin designs. Another important position at the Mint is that of Chief Engraver, which has been held by such men as Frank Gasparro, William Barber, Charles E. Barber, James B. Longacre, Christian Gobrecht and Anthony C. Paquet, among others.

The Mint was made an independent agency in 1799, and under the Coinage Act of 1873, became part of the Department of the Treasury. It was placed under the auspices of the Treasurer of the United States in 1981.

1 Historical facilities
2 Current facilities
3 Mintmarks
4 See also
5 External link

[edit] Historical facilities

The Mint has operated several branch facilities throughout the United States since the Philadelphia Mint opened in 1792 in a building named "Ye Olde Mint". With the opening of branch mints came the need for mint marks, an identifying feature on the coin to show its facility of origin. The first of these branch mints were the Charlotte, North Carolina (1838–1861), Dahlonega, Georgia (1838–1861), and New Orleans, Louisiana (1838–1909) branches. Both the Charlotte ("C" mint mark) and Dahlonega ("D" mint mark) Mints were opened to facilitate the conversion of local gold deposits into coinage, and minted only gold coins. The Civil War closed both these facilities permanently. The New Orleans Mint ("O" mint mark) closed at the beginning of the Civil War (1861) and did not re-open until the end of Reconstruction in 1879. During its two stints as a minting facility, it produced both gold and silver coinage in eleven different denominations, though only ten denominations were ever minted there at one time (in 1851 silver three-cent pieces, half dimes, dimes, quarters, half dollars, and gold dollars, Quarter Eagles, half eagles, eagles, and double eagles).

A new branch facility was opened in Carson City, Nevada in 1870; it operated until 1893, with a four-year hiatus from 1885 to 1889. Like the Charlotte and Dahlonega branches, the Carson City Mint ("CC" mint mark) was opened to take advantage of local precious metal deposits, in this case, a large vein of silver, though gold coins were also produced there (no base metal coins were).

A branch of the U.S. mint was established in 1920 in Manila in the Philippines, which was then a U.S. colony. To date, the Manila Mint is the only US mint established outside of the Continental U.S. and was responsible for producing coins for the colony (one, five, ten, twenty and fifty centavo denominations). This branch was in production from 1920-1922, and then again from 1925 through 1941 (until the outbreak of World War II). Coins struck by this mint either bear the "M" mintmark (for Manila) or none at all - similar to the Philadelphia mint at the time.

[edit] Current facilities

The Mint currently operates its main facility at Philadelphia along with three branch mints. The current facility at Philadelphia, which opened in 1969, is the fourth Philadelphia Mint. The first was built in 1792, when Philadelphia was still the U.S. capital, and began operation in 1793. Until 1980, coins minted at Philadelphia bore no mint mark, with the exceptions of the Susan B. Anthony dollar and the "wartime" Jefferson nickel. In 1980, the "P" mint mark was added to all U.S. coinage except the cent. Until 1968, the Philadelphia Mint was responsible for nearly all official proof coinage. Philadelphia is also the site of all master die production for U.S. coinage, and the engraving and design departments of the Mint are also located there.

The Denver Mint

The Denver branch began life in 1863 as the local assay office, just five years after gold was discovered in the area. By the turn of the century, the office was bringing in over $5 million in annual gold and silver deposits, and in 1906, the Mint opened its new Denver branch. Denver uses a "D" mint mark, and strikes coinage only for circulation. It also produces its own working dies (from masters made in Philadelphia), as well as some of the working dies for the San Francisco Mint.

The San Francisco branch, opened in 1854 to serve the goldfields of the California Gold Rush, uses an "S" mint mark. It quickly outgrew its first building and moved into a new facility in 1874. This building, one of the few that survived the great earthquake of 1906, served until 1937, when the present facility was opened. In 1968, it took over most proof-coinage production from Philadelphia, and since 1975, it has been used solely for proof coinage, with the exception of the Anthony dollar and a portion of the mintage of cents in the early 1980s. (These cents are indistinguishable from those minted at Philadelphia.)

The West Point branch is the newest branch mint. Its predecessor, the West Point Bullion Depository, was opened in 1937, and cents were produced there from 1973 to 1986. The West Point Mint gained official status as a branch mint on March 31, 1988. Along with the cents already mentioned, which were identical to those produced at Philadelphia, West Point has struck a great deal of commemorative and proof coinage bearing the "W" mint mark. In 1996, West Point produced clad dimes, but for collectors, not for circulation. The West Point facility is still used for storage of part of the United States' gold bullion reserves, and West Point is now the United States' only production facility for gold, silver and platinum American Eagle coins.

While not a coin production facility, the U.S. Bullion Depository at Fort Knox, Kentucky is another facility of the Mint. Its primary purpose is for storage of the United States' (and other countries') gold bullion reserves.

The Mint manages extensive commercial marketing programs. The product line includes special coin sets for collectors, national medals, American Eagle gold, silver and platinum bullion coins, and commemorative coins marking national events such as the Bicentennial of the Constitution. The Mint's functions include:

Producing domestic, bullion and foreign coins;
Manufacturing and selling national commemorative medals;
Designing, producing, and marketing special coinage;
Manufacturing and selling proof and uncirculated coin sets and other numismatic items;
Safeguarding and controlling the movement of bullion;
Disbursing gold and silver for authorized purposes;
Distributing coins from the various mints to Federal Reserve Banks.

Note that the Mint is not responsible for the production of paper money; that is the responsibility of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.

In 2000, the Mint was responsible for the production of 28 billion coins. See United States Mint coin production for annual production values of each coin.

Responsible for protection of Mint facilities, employees and reserves is the United States Mint Police, a federal law enforcement agency.

[edit] Mintmarks

A 2005 Lincoln cent, with the "D" mintmark of the Denver mint

With the exception of a brief period in 1838 and 1839, all coins minted at U.S. branch mints prior to 1909 displayed that branch's mintmark on their reverse. Larger denominations of gold and silver coins were labeled with the Dahlonega, Charlotte, and New Orleans mintmarks ("D," "C," and "O," respectively) on the obverse (just above the dates) in those two years. Carson City, which served as a U.S. branch mint from 1870 to 1893, produced coins with a "CC" mintmark.

Between 1965 and 1967, no American coins displayed mintmarks as the mints labored to replace the silver coinage with base metal coins, in order to discourage the hoarding of coins by numismatists. Mintmarks were moved to the obverse of the nickel, dime, quarter, and half dollar in 1968, and have appeared on the obverse of the dollar coin since its re-introduction in 1971.

On the nickel, the mintmark is currently located near the rim, clockwise from the date. Dimes have their mintmarks above the date, while quarters have a mintmark to the right of Washington's bust. The half dollar has a mintmark just to the right of Kennedy's bust, and the Sacagawea dollar's mintmark is just below the date.

Reverse of a wartime nickel, with the mintmark located above Monticello

Due to a shortage of nickel during World War II, the composition of the five-cent coin was changed to include silver. To mark this change, nickels minted in Philadelphia (which had featured no mintmarks until then) displayed a "P" in the space above the dome of Monticello. Nickels from San Francisco were minted in the same fashion, and Denver nickels reflected the change in 1943. This new mintmark location continued until 1946, when the nickel returned to its pre-war composition.

The "P" mintmark, discontinued after the war, reappeared in 1979 on the Anthony dollar. By 1982, it had appeared on every other regular-issue coin except the cent, which still bears no "P" mintmark. The circulating cents struck in the 1980's at San Francisco (except proofs) and West Point also bear no mintmark, as their facilities were used to supplement Philadelphia's production. Given the limited numbers produced at each facility, they might have been hoarded as collectibles.