1908 Mint Production Totals... from the January 1909 Numismatist

illini420

Was looking through some old copies of The Numismatist again, this time the January 1909 issue and came across this page that reported the total production of the Mint for the prior year, 1908.

I thought there were several interesting things in the commentary.

First, the mention of the 1908-S Indian Cent as the first Branch Mint Cent was expected, but to see that there was the expectation for both cents and nickels to be coined in both San Francisco and Denver in 1909 was not expected. Sure we had the cents from San Francisco (both Indian and Lincoln) but none from Denver... that would have been neat! Also would have been neat to have nickels from the branch mints, but that didn't happen until a few years later in 1912.

The reasoning for coining the minor coinage in the West as being for slot machines is interesting as well. Most of the stories I've read elsewhere cast the blame (or give credit) to the introduction of sales taxes which necessitated the minor coinage to make change.

Anyways, thought some others may enjoy this too so here it is...

CaptHenway

I wonder why the S.F. Mint's total output for the year was so small? Less than New Orleans, for heaven's sake!

ricko

That is curious...... thanks for the article...Cheers, RickO

OldEastside

That would have been cool to have a 1908 d or s nickel

Steve

DaveG

The "slot machines" in the article aren't the gambling machines that we're familiar with today, but rather what we call "vending machines." Although these machines most commonly took nickels, there were machines that accepted cents.

Regarding the San Francisco Mint's modest coin production, you can't make coins without bullion, so let's look at the gold deposits (I don't have the silver deposits handy):

July 1, 1904 - June 30, 1905: $57.5 million
July 1, 1905 - June 30, 1906: $36.4 million
July 1, 1906 - June 30, 1907: $58.6 million
July 1, 1907 - June 30, 1908: $53.3 million
July 1, 1908 - June 30, 1909: $41.0 million
July 1, 1909 - June 30, 1910: $42.4 million

Well, the modest production of coins in 1908 wasn't due to lack of bullion. Let's look at gold bar and coin production:

FY 1905: $1.0 million in bars; $64.3 million in coins
FY 1906: $4.1 million in bars; $26.6 million in coins
FY 1907: $13,400 in bars; $33.9 million in coins
FY 1908: $46,000 in bars; $45.4 million in coins
FY 1909: 2.3 million in bars; $52.8 million in coins
FY 1910: $9.1 million in bars; $23.8 million in coins


Well, the modest production of coins in 1908 wasn't due to bars being produced instead of coins, nor was it due to a dip in coin production in the fiscal year. Let's look at coin production by calendar year:

1907: $45.4 million
1908: $1.0 million
1909: $59.9 million

Eureka!

Well, I can't explain why, but I can say that there was a big drop in gold coin production in calendar 1908 that wasn't due to a drop in gold deposits and isn't echoed in gold coin production by fiscal year for FY08 and FY09 - which leads me to conclude that the drop was planned. If not, there would have been dips in coin production in FY08 and FY09; no dips means higher production in the second half of 1907 and the first half of 1909 to make up for the dip in 1908.

When I get a chance, I'll read through the Mint Annual Reports for those two years to see if there's any mention of a drop in production.

sparky64

<< <i>Anyways, thought some others may enjoy this too so here it is... >>


Enjoyed it. Thanks.

CaptHenway

Perhaps they took their gold-handling equipment off-line for a while to modernize it.

DaveG

Well, there aren't any useful comments in the FY1908 and FY1909 Mint annual reports, other than a brief note that the SF mint produced gold coins on 50 consecutive days in FY1909. (That does suggest they were rushing to catch up, however.)

The Secretary of the Treasury's Annual Report makes mention of the SF mint's gold vaults being so stuffed with coins that they approved the transfer of some $275 million of gold coins to Denver in May 1908, so it's barely possible that the SF mint didn't need to make gold coins in 1908. (This is somewhat unlikely, however, given the amount of gold that was deposited during the two fiscal years in question and the amount of coins that were produced in 1907 and 1909.)

However, as we know, 1908 was the transition year in double eagles and only the Philly mint made a lot of double eagles that year (4.3 million - many more than usual). Considering that the SF mint made a lot of double eagles in the years preceding 1908 and made a lot of double eagles in 1909 and 1910, I suspect there was a die issue - perhaps the Philly mint didn't make enough to supply the branch mints. (This is somewhat unlikely, however, since the Philly mint made enough dies to make almost twice as many double eagles as usual. Glancing at the mintages, 1908 was a big peak for Philly double eagle production. This suggests that they wanted to keep production of the new double eagles close to home, for some reason.)

One would have to examine the die manufacturing and shipment records, the monthly gold deposit records, the monthly coin production records and the correspondence between SF and Philly to get a better picture of what was going on.

In glancing at the SF mintages of dimes, quarters and halves, there's no obvious big drop in 1908, other than the drop in quarters, of course.

In any event, there doesn't appear to be an obvious reason for the drop in production of gold coins in SF in 1908.