Earliest Recorded Mintages?

Nysoto

What is the earliest recorded mintage in quantity of coins struck for a year?

When did the recording of mintage quantities become widespread? With the appearance of dated coins?

I would speculate that many early mintages were recorded, but records did not survive.

cladking

Good question.

I'd guess that mintages were very important to issuers and to minters but
generally didn't survive because they weren't published. In some cases they
would want to be kept secret and in others, there simply wasn't much interest.

Someone here should know some early mintages.

+3

coinkat

I have seen mintage figures from various European countries from the 1700's

worldcoinguy

OK Krause librarians....better this one:

1620 - German States - Bavaria - 1 thaler - mintage 41,000 (dav #6064)

worldcoinguy

Interesting topic. Here are a few more samplings:

Spanish Netherlands - 1626 - 2 Souverain d-or - mintage 930 pieces)
Sweden - 1638 - 1 oro - mintage 12,471,000

ColinCMR

Does Krause ever cite the sources?

newsman

<< <i>OK Krause librarians....better this one:

1620 - German States - Bavaria - 1 thaler - mintage 41,000 (dav #6064) >>



Here you go, from the 10th century: Study of dirham production from Samarkand mint

satootoko

<< <i>Does Krause ever cite the sources? >>

sumnom

There are recorded mintages in China, Korea, and probably Japan as well (but I am not so familiar with Japanese coinage) that go way, way back.

Nysoto

Thanks for the responses, that dirham production study was great! I would also speculate that with gold and silver, the weight of coins produced was recorded before quantities.

Early mintage reports are always be suspect. Early US mintages are derived from deliveries, which may include coins from the previous year. Breen's SWAG of 1200 for the 1836 reeded edge half dollar should be removed from the Redbook, it is probably closer to the surviving number than the mintage.

GDJMSP

It depends on which country, but recorded mintage numbers can generally be found as far back as the 1300's provided you have the right books. And in some cases to the very late dark ages. And while mintage numbers as we think of them were not always recorded, the total weight of coins issued was recorded. Of course all you need is to do a little math to figure out mintage numbers based on the weight.

The Netherlands, for example, began recording mintage numbers in the late 1300's, France around 900. But Spain was still recording weight based on the mark well into the 1800's. But pretty much everybody recorded it in one way or another.