Why 1859 mint annual report figure is different then the number stated in reference books?
Coincollection123
Posts: 39 ✭
I know this might be a stupid question, but I will ask anyway. Today I was reading the Annual Report of the Director of the Mint, For the Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1859. The mintage figure for 1857 cent caught my eye. It stated that 6,333,456 cents pieces was minted in 1857. But I then check reference book for 1857 cent and found them all saying that a mintage of 17,450,00. Does any one know why there is a differences in numbers? (A side note is that the 1858 number is also slightly different, the report stated that it is 23,400,00. Reference book stated that a mintage of 24,600,000.) Numbers for 1855 and 1856 cent matches up with reference books, but 1857 and 1858 does not.
0
Comments
Here is the 1858 report, the number is also different
this is a question for our former resident researcher RogerB/RWB
he is on the NGC forums.
perhaps he knows. it's quite a discrepancy
If any one want to look for the original mint report documents. Here is the link: https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/publisherdetail/51
If the mint report number is correct, I am very curious where the 1857 17,450,000 mintage number comes from? Is there other documents that stated differently that I was not aware of?
I will say this
The documents in the images appear to be printed and not of a period font if I’m not mistaken
Additionally if you ask for mint documents of that time they would be handwritten.
The door is now open to errors between the two sources
Follow the link in this thread and you will see what a period ledger looks like as the true source of mintages
https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/994608/daily-and-monthly-coinage-ledgers-on-nnp
There are some mintage entries in the Red Book that are incorrect (based on the mint reports). The interesting thing, is in the 60s, they were listed incorrectly, corrected, and then change back to the incorrect values a few years later. The last time I checked, they are still wrong.
The quantities for 1857 and 1858 cents are identical in the 1858 and 1859 reports.
Which number is different?
I do not know the answer to the original question of why the mintage figure for 1857 and 1858 cents are different in reference books vs. this mint report.
However, the people who study these use the more detailed documents which have individual deliveries of coins within the year. So they can handle things like coins with 1857 dates that were struck in early 1858.
The confusion over the 1857 and later figures is due to the Mint changing their
reports from a calendar year to a fiscal year basis in July 1857. The 1858 report,
for example, covers the last six months of 1857 and the first six months of 1858.
The Mint calculated and published the calendar-year statistics in the late 1880s.