U.s. Mint
Mint)
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Denver United States mint building
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. It was the first building of the Republic raised under the Constitution.
The Mint's first director was renowned scientist David Rittenhouse.
Henry Voigt was the first Superintendent and Chief Coiner, and is credited with some of the first U.S. 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.
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.
History
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. 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 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 (Manila Mint) was established in 1920 in Manila in the Philippines, which was then a U.S. and was responsible for producing coins for the colony (one, five, ten, twenty and fifty centavo denominations).
Coins struck by this mint bear either the M mintmark (for Manila) or none at all, similar to the Philadelphia mint at the time.
The new regulation, coming from the Treasury Department, allows the U.S. Mint to charge fines of up to $25,000 for any misuse of its names and symbols, as well as names, symbols and emblems of the Treasury in advertisements and other activities.
Current facilities
The Philadelphia Mint
Philadelphia
The Mint's largest facility is the Philadelphia Mint, one of four active coin-producing mints.
The first was built in 1792, when Philadelphia was still the U.S. Until 1980, coins minted at Philadelphia bore no mint mark, with the exceptions of the Susan B.
coinage, and the engraving and design departments of the Mint are also located there.
Denver
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, although it did strike along with three other mints the $10 gold 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Commemorative. It also produces its own working dies, as well as working dies for the other Mints.
San Francisco
According to the plaque, this is the largest and most powerful coining press in the world, built for the San Francisco Mint by Morgan & Orr, October 14, 1873.
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. It was closed in 1955, then reopened a decade later during the coin shortage of the mid-60s.
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.)
West Point
The West Point branch is the newest branch mint.
The West Point Mint gained official status as a branch mint on March 31, 1988. In 1996, West Point produced clad dimes, but for collectors, not for circulation.
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 and silver bullion reserves.
The Mint manages extensive commercial marketing programs.
The Mint's functions include:
Producing domestic, bullion and foreign coins;
Manufacturing and selling national commemorative medals;
Designing and producing the congressional gold 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.
Mintmarks
Lincoln memorial cent, with the S mintmark of the San Francisco mint.
With the exception of a brief period in 1838 and 1839, all coins minted at U.S.
branch mint from 1870 to 1893, produced coins with a CC mintmark.
Between 1965 and 1967, as the Mint labored to replace the silver coinage with base metal coins, mintmarks were temporarily dispensed with (including on the penny and nickel) 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.
Cent: Unlike all other coins, which had their mintmarks on the reverse until 1964, the Lincoln cent has always had its mintmark on the obverse below the date to the right of Lincoln's bust since its 1909 introduction.
Nickel: The mintmark was located near the rim of the obverse side, clockwise from the date from 1968 to 2005, to the right of Thomas Jefferson's bust.
The redesigned obverse of the nickel which appeared starting in 2006 has its mintmark below the date on the lower right. Kennedy's bust, above the date.
Eisenhower dollar (1971-1978): The mintmark is below the center of Dwight D.
To mark this change, nickels minted in Philadelphia (which had featured no mintmarks until then) displayed a P in the field above the dome of Monticello. By 1982, it had appeared on every other regular-issue coin except the cent, which still bears no P mintmark.