Coin Blog

The preliminary mintage for the Yellowstone National Park Quarter has recently been provided by the United States Mint. This is the second coin in the new America the Beautiful Quarters Program.

There were 34.8 million coins produced at the Denver Mint and 33.6 million coins produced at the Philadelphia Mint. This makes the total production across both facilities 68.4 million. The US Mint does caution that this is a preliminary figure. If time and resources allow, the US Mint seems to be able to restart production of coins previous releases as long as it is still the current calendar year.

Interestingly, this amount comes in above the production level for the first release of the year. The Hot Springs Quarter mintage was a combined 59.6 million. This breaks the streak of continually declining quarter mintages that has been in place for more than a year.

Does this signify a change in trend or an aberration? Will Hot Springs be the low mintage coin for the series?

In the last month, the United States Mint has produced the first circulation strike 2010 Jefferson Nickels at the Denver Mint.

The first Philadelphia strike coins came in April 2010, when a scant 1.68 million were produced. At the time, it appeared that there might be a chance of coming in below the extremely low production totals experienced for the 2009 Jefferson Nickels. However, now it seems relatively certain that the low levels of the prior year will be surpassed.

Through June 30, 2010, the US Mint has now produced 76.08 million of the 2010-P Jefferson Nickels. This is already above last year's total annual production of 39.84 million.

At Denver, production has been 36.24 million so far. This entire amount was minted in June. The prior year total remains slightly higher at 46.8 million coins.

Both 2010-P and 2010-D nickels have already been reported in the channels of circulation.

The United States Mint recently provided the final production figures for the Franklin Pierce Dollar. This coin is the fourteenth release of the Presidential Dollar coin series, which began back in 2007.

The final production figures came in at 38,220,000 coins from the Philadelphia Mint and 38,360,00 coins from the Denver Mint. This makes for a combined circulating coin production total of 76,580,000.

Interestingly, this marks a slight increase from the production levels of the previous Millard Fillmore Dollar. This may or may not be a turning point for the series.

Since 2007, the general trend for mintages has been down. After producing 340 million George Washington Dollars, figures rapidly fell for the remaining releases that year. During 2008 and 2009, mintages continued to move generally downward, but there were a few blips upward interspersed. Will the Franklin Pierce Dollar turn out to be another blip, or the start of a longer stabilization or upturn in production?

The first production figures are available for the newly launched America the Beautiful Quarters series. In keeping with the recent trend of declining mintage for circulating coins, the Hot Springs Quarter production figures mark the lowest circulating production level for an individual quarter since the 1950's.

The Philadelphia Mint produced 30,600,000 coins and the Denver Mint produced 29,000,000 coins for a total of 59,600,000. The previous quarter released featuring the Northern Mariana Islands had a total combined production of 72,800,000.

In the eyes of collectors, the declining mintages may be a good reason to collect the new series. Low mintage coins are traditionally seen as key dates, although the levels aren't really in the same league as some classic key date rarities. Will America the Beautiful Quarters Mintages continue the downward trend? How low can the mintages go?

Last month the first 2010 Roosevelt Dimes began showing up in circulation. This occurred a bit sooner than the first 2009 Roosevelt Dimes, which didn't show up until late May.

This denomination received more attention than usual last year because of the extremely small mintage. After years of mintages in the billions, the US Mint drastically scaled back production in 2009, as the need for newly minted coins for circulation dropped. The 2009-P Roosevelt Dime had a mintage of 96.5 million and the 2009-D Roosevelt Dime had a mintage of 49.5 million.

This year's Roosevelt Dime seems poised to have higher mintages and seemingly more widespread availability. Through the end of April, the US Mint has produced 73.5 million 2010-P Roosevelt Dimes and 40 million 2010-D Roosevelt Dimes.

So far the few people who have managed to get rolls of 2010 Roosevelt Dimes have been selling them for quite a premium, however, I think the high prices will be more short lived than last year's coins.