Which mint D or P produces the best quality circulating coins?

jessewvu

Is there a difference for circulating coinage?

MrSpud

New D's seem to have a few less contact marks than new P's in my limited experience looking at new coins.

fcloud

Hands down -- Denver!

jessewvu

I was thinking the same thing, Philadelphia sucks. I have been looking through rolls of bison nickels and the P mint coins are terrible. After searching each roll, sliding the coins over a white piece of paper, the paper turns grey. Not to mention the coins look like Edward Scissorhands was handling each one.

fc

i do not look at brand new coins out of rolls or bags. so i am discounting
contact marks and other handling issues.

i do look at the change i get in daily commerce and I cannot tell a
difference at all. nada. zip. nothing. they all look the same to me.

cladking

I'll play devil's advocate and say Philly.

Denver is far better on average and at the low end of the scale almost all
the population is Philly.

But at the highest reaches of the scale it's not at all unusual for Phillys to
be nicer than the Denvers. The main problem with the Philly coins is that
they are so banged up and they do use the dies longer.

19Lyds

Personally, I think it depends upon the coin.

For the Eisenhowers, Denver did the best job while Philadelphia sucked big time!

For the Kennedy's, Philly looked great while Denver sucked.

Each year and denomination is completely different.

sumnom

I get the impression that Denver has been much better in recent years.

Coxe

So the wise modern collector should be targetting the superior quality ones they can find among the generally inferior Phila product?

cladking

<< <i>I get the impression that Denver has been much better in recent years. >>




Yes, since about the mid-'50's.

GrumpyEd

I don't know about the quality but most of the neat varieties seem to be on P mint coins.
I'd rather search a box of mixed P mint cents than Ds.

BillyKingsley

By time the Denvers get to me here in NY, they are usually beat up pretty badly. Of cource, most of the P mint coins I see are cents and 98% of them have all been spotty and generally nasty too.
I don't think my input would help any.

Ds are rare to get in circulation. Oddly enough the first Alaska Quarter I got was a D, though.

Type2

If you are looking for error Philly if you are looking for nice coins Denver. That is what I see and I look at a lot of roll. But that is just me.

Bochiman

<< <i>I'll play devil's advocate and say Philly.

Denver is far better on average and at the low end of the scale almost all
the population is Philly.

But at the highest reaches of the scale it's not at all unusual for Phillys to
be nicer than the Denvers. The main problem with the Philly coins is that
they are so banged up and they do use the dies longer. >>




Not really devil's advocate. I think you are right.

I believe the Denver mint makes much nicer coins, on the average. I do believe that, on the higher scale, Philly wins more often. Maybe it is only the "P" in the pod but they don't hit the higher ones.

If they could be more consistent, it would be great. As it is, the phillies have a few great coins and many beat up ones compared to Denver's many higher mid-levels.

frnklnlvr

Over here in VA the new coins I see are P-mint, it's usually at least a year before I start seeing D-mint coins. I've also noticed that most of the Proof-like Sacs and Pres. $s always come from Denver.

blueifalcon

Denver seems slightly better to me.

Goldbully

<< <i>Denver seems slightly better to me. >>




point: Better Quality Coins from Denver Mint
By Joseph Cozzolino, Numismatic News
January 06, 2009


Like many other collectors, when the state quarter program was started I put a roll from each state and mint away for the future. I recently realized that I had a significant amount of money tied up in quarters that were going no where price wise.

In reviewing my inventory and the mintage quantities from each Mint, I concluded that the coins were never going to appreciate much in my lifetime. Therefore, I decided to go through all the rolls and put aside the 10 best coins from each state and mintmark. As most of the rolls had never been opened, the results of my selection process were rather eye opening.

My study was based on approximately 95 rolls of quarters evenly divided between the Philadelphia and Denver mints. The major conclusion I reached was the difference in the quality of coins produced at each of the mints. The quality of the coins produced at the Denver mint is far superior in all aspects to those produced at the Philadelphia mint. In arriving at my findings and conclusions, I considered a number of criteria as follows.



1. Overall quality of the coin
2. Eye appeal
3. Surface blemishes produced during the manufacturing process
4. Overall brightness/brilliance
5. Errors found
6. Amount of bag marks on coins

When going through the selection process, I had no trouble picking out 10 coins from the Denver rolls that I believe were MS-65 or better. It was not the same when I went through the Philadelphia mint coins. In fact, there were numerous times when I had trouble getting the 10 coins from the Philadelphia rolls, but had no trouble getting the desired 10 from the Denver rolls.

I found a number of other interesting finds included in my search. I found a number of coins that had a very fine line of metal that ran from the state design to the edge of the coin and from Washington's breast to the edge of the coin, all on Philadelphia coins. I attributed them to a hairline crack in the die.

I found a number of coins from Philadelphia where the work "United" in "United States of America" was crushed so that it was almost flat.

On many of the Philadelphia coins, there were large areas that looked like a "blochy surface," as if the coin had a bad rash.

I found a number of Alaska quarters from the Philadelphia mint that had the designer's initials completely gone and others where the initials were partially missing.

On a number of Arizona quarters from Philadelphia, there was an extra glob of metal at the base of the cactus at 5 o'clock that obliterated two of the three designer's initials.

There were a number of problems found on the Hawaii quarter. One quarter had the first two letters of the motto at the 8 and 9 o'clock on the coin completely filled in. Another coin had the "E plu" missing from the "E Pluribus Unum" at the bottom of the coin.

There were a number of other minor finds, but those above were the major items. Without a doubt, the state quarters produced at the Denver mint were far superior in all aspects than those produced in Philadelphia Someone at the Philadelphia mint needs to review and evaluate their processes and procedures because the current quality is unacceptable, in fact I believe it is junk. I am sure that the balance of coin denominations produced at the Philadelphia mint are probably experiencing the same poor quality.

I believe that Mint Director Edmund Moy should spend more time on better and improved quality rather than traveling around the country pushing new products, more sale sand increased profits.

Joseph Cozzolino is a hobbyist from Washington Crossing, Pa.


NN Link

cladking

Wow, if he's not happy with the quality difference in the states
issues he should have seen the difference in something like 1969
quarters. It was very extreme that year as Denver had already
started making some improvements in quality after years of just
trying to catch up with the coin shortage. The masters were redone
and designs strenghtened. They changed dies out when they started
getting worn.

But for Philly it was just another year to crank out.

The difference is so extreme that about 95% of the D's are superior
to more than 95% of the P's.

I've always believed that the big problem with modern quality is
that until the states coins came out that no one cared. Very few
people ever even looked at the coins.

Both mints have been doing better in recent years but Philly qual-
ity still lags considerably. I have seen some pretty nice Philly states
coins though they do still have a problem with scratches and average
quality.

McDonis

When I order mint rolls its very obvious that Denver produces better on average coins. With state quarters I have seen many P mint MS coins with nasty cuds, die breaks, and general wear and tear. With D mint its night and day.




This seems to be noted in pricing for modern coins you generally see higher prices for high MS quality P mint coins vs MS high quality D coins.

Mar327

Denver without a doubt. As far back as I can remember they've had brighter luster and a lot less contact marks than Philly coins. Philly should take notes.

There's an exception to everything, however. I finally noticed with the rolls of Alaska and Hawaii quarters that the Philly coins looked just as good as Denver's. Couldn't believe my eyes, usually I can tell them apart immediately. Maybe it was a fluke, or maybe something good happened over here in the east, like they actually paid attention to what they were doing?

cladking

<< <i>Denver without a doubt. As far back as I can remember they've had brighter luster and a lot less contact marks than Philly coins. Philly should take notes.

There's an exception to everything, however. I finally noticed with the rolls of Alaska and Hawaii quarters that the Philly coins looked just as good as Denver's. Couldn't believe my eyes, usually I can tell them apart immediately. Maybe it was a fluke, or maybe something good happened over here in the east, like they actually paid attention to what they were doing? >>



Most likely you should go back to the same bank and get some more of those Philly rolls.

Mar327

<< <i>

<< <i>Denver without a doubt. As far back as I can remember they've had brighter luster and a lot less contact marks than Philly coins. Philly should take notes.

There's an exception to everything, however. I finally noticed with the rolls of Alaska and Hawaii quarters that the Philly coins looked just as good as Denver's. Couldn't believe my eyes, usually I can tell them apart immediately. Maybe it was a fluke, or maybe something good happened over here in the east, like they actually paid attention to what they were doing? >>



Most likely you should go back to the same bank and get some more of those Philly rolls. >>



Right, like I'd actually get another couple rolls like that? I didn't know they were nice til I opened them right after Christmas. sigh...

cladking

<< <i>

<< <i>

<< <i>Denver without a doubt. As far back as I can remember they've had brighter luster and a lot less contact marks than Philly coins. Philly should take notes.

There's an exception to everything, however. I finally noticed with the rolls of Alaska and Hawaii quarters that the Philly coins looked just as good as Denver's. Couldn't believe my eyes, usually I can tell them apart immediately. Maybe it was a fluke, or maybe something good happened over here in the east, like they actually paid attention to what they were doing? >>



Most likely you should go back to the same bank and get some more of those Philly rolls. >>



Right, like I'd actually get another couple rolls like that? I didn't know they were nice til I opened them right after Christmas. sigh... >>




You might be surprised.

These are distributed in such massive quantities it can take a while
to work through a batch. Each areas coins are strongly "colored"
by what's actually shipped to them for some time. While most areas
will tend toward average this isn't universal.

Back in '79 I discovered the type "d" reverse '79 quarter early in the
year. It didn't seem very important at the time since nearly a third
of the coins in circulation were of this type. I made the mistake of
mostly ignoring it. What I didn't know at the time is almost the entire
production was released in NW Indiana and the nearby Chicago sub-
urbs. These account for only about 1 1/2% of production.

They may have new batches in by now and they may not.