The ever changing Red Book mintages
dbldie55
Posts: 7,741 ✭✭✭✭✭
This time it is 1888 Liberty Head Nickels.
From the 16th (1963) edition, the first to include mintages, until the 57th in 2004, the mintage was listed as 10,720,483. In the 58th edition in 2005 this changed to 10,720,486 (would appear to be a typo). In the 59th edition in 2006, the number dropped to 10,167,901 where is is still listed in the 73rd edition of 2020. As a note, they also pulled the proof numbers out of the total starting with the 2006 edition. Given there are 4,582 proofs, adding these to the 10,167,901 number to get a value of the total (as listed in the prior years), the number would be 10,172,483.
So, what number is correct?
By using the mintage records in the yearly mint reports, the 10,720,483 is correct. (I can include monthly numbers as well.)
Removing the proof mintage from the total would leave 10,715,901 business strikes so the numbers are 548,000 off.
Comments
Believe it or not, Mint records can be ambiguous.
Julian and Eckberg disagree about 1793 half cent mintage. Both are arguing from original sources, not "Breen said this so it must be true."
Did you call the Redbook customer service? Or flag @Dentuck here with the question?? Cheers, RickO
In this case, the mint records seem to match up. I have one of the yearly reports (from 1965) which shows the numbers back to 1793 and they line up. Roger posted all of the monthly ledgers on the NNC and the monthly numbers add up to the listed yearly mintage.
I do agree that some mint records can be a little fuzzy. I am questioning why the numbers changed from one generation of Red Books to the next. I am guessing it was an error when they changed the number, removing the proof mintage.
I wouldn't trust a Mint document from 1965 on something like the 1793 half cent mintage. I would put a lot more faith in the contemporary records from the 18th century. At this point, the numismatic researchers understand a lot more about early Mint history than the Mint itself. The Mint today is a manufacturing operation and doesn't spend a lot of money learning about its own history. Most of their internal documents were transferred to National Archives long ago, so they don't even have direct access to the source material. That's not to malign the current Mint administration, they have to follow priorities set by the Treasury Secretary, who has a lot bigger problems that sorting out 200 year old records.