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US Mint product (item) codes. (Updated Sep 2019)

BackroadJunkieBackroadJunkie Posts: 3,745 ✭✭✭✭✭
edited September 3, 2019 4:01AM in U.S. Coin Forum

Another answer to a question that no one has asked (in a while.) This post has been updated Sept 2019 to address new products. The original post can be found futher down in this thread, here.

Back in the bad ol' days at the Mint (prior to 2016 :)), Mint Product Codes were generally three characters long. The first character was a letter, followed by a number or a letter, followed by a number. They tried to follow some sort of logical progression for multi-year products (such as the quarter programs and annual sets), but it mostly fell into a random, meaningless relationship between product and product number.

In 2016 the Mint decided to actually rationalize their Product Codes.

Mint Product Numbers now are generally four or five characters, and take the form of:

yyTU[V]

where:

yy is the year.

T is the type. Types:

A: ATB quarters.
C: Commemoratives.
D: American Liberty Coin/Medals.
E: Precious Medals (includes all Eagle products and the Buffalo.)
F: Presidential $1 Coin Covers. (Short lived, ended in 2016.)
G: American Innovation Dollars.
K: Kennedy Halves.
N: Native American Dollars.
P: President Dollars. (Ended in 2016.)
R: Regular (Maybe Repeating, since it's used for annual Mint products.)
S: First Spouse. (Ended in 2016.)
X: Special Mint Product (See below.)

Other "types":

Bnnnnn: BEP (Moneyfactory) products. No year component, "B" is followed by a unique 5 digit number.
S8nn: Silver Presidential Medals. They have no year component, since they're part of the Mint's permanent catalog. "nn" is a number, starting with "01" for Washington, "02" for Adams, etc.

U is a letter that uniquely identifies the product. These are generally consistant from year to year for annual products. (Examples below.)

An exception exists for the ATB quarters and American Innovation dollars, where U indicates a bag ("B") or roll ("R") product. One also exists for Special Mint Products, where a "G" indicates a kid product.

V is only used if "U" is a bag, roll or kid product, and is a letter that uniquely identifies the product. (Examples below.)

Note: The Mint avoids letter/number combinations in situations which could be confusing. Thus, they don't use the letters "I" or "O" for types or unique identifiers, since it will be confused with the numbers "1" or "0".

Special Mint Products (Type "X"):

Special Mint Products generally don't involve congressional mandates, and are single year US Mint products. (American Liberty was the exception, but has now been given it's own type.)

Examples are the 2016 Centennial gold coins (16XA, 16XB and 16XC), the 2017 Enhanced Uncirculated set (17XC) and the 2018 Reverse Proof silver set (18XC).

If a "G" follows the "X", it is a product directed towards the kid program, such as the 2019 Rocketship (19XGC) and the 2019 Explore And Disccover set (19XGB).

Some America the Beautiful examples:

America the Beautiful quarters, Normal products. (17=2017, A=ATB series, then a product identifier.)

17AA: 2017 ATB QTR UNC SET
17AD: 2017 ATB QTR 3-COIN SET - EFF MNDS
17AE: 2017 ATB QTR 3-COIN SET - DOUGLASS
17AJ: 2017 ATB SILVER UNC 5 OZ - EFF MNDS
17AK: 2017 ATB SILVER UNC 5 OZ - DOUGLASS

America the Beautiful quarters, Roll and bag products. (17=2017, A=ATB series, "B" is for bag and "R" is for roll, then a product identifier.)

17ABA: 2017 ATB QTR 100-COIN BAG - EFF MNDS (P)
17ABB: 2017 ATB QTR 100-COIN BAG - EFF MNDS (D)
17ABC: 2017 ATB QTR 100-COIN BAG - EFF MNDS (S)
17ABD: 2017 ATB QTR 100-COIN BAG - DOUGLASS (P)
17ABE: 2017 ATB QTR 100-COIN BAG - DOUGLASS (D)
17ABF: 2017 ATB QTR 100-COIN BAG - DOUGLASS (S)
17ARA: 2017 ATB QTR 2-ROLL SET - EFF MNDS (P & D)
17ARB: 2017 ATB QTR 40-COIN ROLL - EFF MNDS (S)
17ARC: 2017 ATB QTR 3-ROLL SET - EFF MNDS (P & D & S)
17ARD: 2017 ATB QTR 2-ROLL SET - DOUGLASS (P & D)
17ARE: 2017 ATB QTR 40-COIN ROLL - DOUGLASS (S)
17ARF: 2017 ATB QTR 3-ROLL SET - DOUGLASS (P & D & S)

For yearly products, the two suffix characters have been consistant since the change. ("yy" is the year.)

Precious Medals

yyEA: AM EAGLE SILVER PROOF 1 OZ (W)
yyEB: AM EAGLE GOLD PROOF 1 OZ
yyEC: AM EAGLE GOLD PROOF 1/2 OZ
yyED: AM EAGLE GOLD PROOF 1/4 OZ
yyEE: AM EAGLE GOLD PROOF 1/10 OZ
yyEF: AM EAGLE GOLD PROOF 4-COIN SET
yyEG: AM EAGLE SILVER UNC 1 OZ (W)
yyEH: AM EAGLE GOLD UNC 1 OZ
yyEJ: AM EAGLE PLATINUM PROOF 1 OZ
yyEK: AM EAGLE PALLADIUM 1OZ
yyEL: AM BUFFALO GOLD PROOF 1 OZ
yyEM: AM EAGLE SILVER PROOF (S)

Regular (Annual sets)

yyRC: LIMITED EDITION SILVER PROOF SET
yyRD: BIRTH SET
yyRE: HAPPY BIRTHDAY SET
yyRF: CONGRATULATIONS SET
yyRG: PROOF SET
yyRH: SILVER PROOF SET
yyRJ: UNC SET

Kennedy Halves

yyKA: HALF-DOLLAR 200-COIN BAG (P & D)
yyKB: HALF-DOLLAR 2-ROLL SET (P & D)

Native American Dollars

yyNA: NA $1 25-COIN ROLL (P)
yyNB: NA $1 25-COIN ROLL (D)
yyNC: NA $1 250-COIN BOX (P)
yyND: NA $1 250-COIN BOX (D)
yyNE: NA $1 100-COIN BAG (P)
yyNF: NA $1 100-COIN BAG (D)

Final note, I'm using my own termniology. For instance, what I'm calling "type" could also be called a Product Catagory or Program Name. What I'm calling a "product code", was initially identifed by the Mint as "Program Item" and later just changed to "Item" in the Cumulative Sales Figure reports. None of this information comes from the Mint, I'm only looking at the patterns of the new product codes since inception, so these may be more "guidelines" than actual "rules"... ;)

Comments

  • rickoricko Posts: 98,724 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Wow... OK then... I actually never wondered about this, but thanks for your work.... I will copy and paste it for reference. Cheers, RickO

  • RogerBRogerB Posts: 8,852 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Interesting. Thanks for the code deciphering. It was an Enigma, now just an igma.

  • ECHOESECHOES Posts: 2,974 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Thanks for your work and dedication to US Mint products! :#

    ~HABE FIDUCIAM IN DOMINO III V VI / III XVI~
    POST NUBILA PHOEBUS / AFTER CLOUDS, SUN
    Love for Music / Collector of Dreck
  • BackroadJunkieBackroadJunkie Posts: 3,745 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited September 3, 2019 4:02AM

    Bump because I've updated the tables. Below is the original post, the update post is in post 1 of this thread...


    @BackroadJunkie said:
    This may only be of interest to a small number of people, but hey, I was doing backups, and it was a more interesting endeavor than watching paint dry...

    The question of US Mint product codes have come up a couple of times, and with the publication of the 2018 schedule I think it can be confirmed that they follow a pattern. In 2016 the Mint standardized their Item (or Product) Numbers. (Prior to 2016 they seemingly put together a random letter or two followed by a sequence number, making it extremely difficult to backtrack a mint product from a product number.)

    Mint Product Numbers are generally four or five characters, and take the form of:

    YYTU[V]

    where:

    YY is the year.

    T is the type. Types:

    A: ATB quarters
    C: Commemoratives
    E: Precious Medals (includes all Eagle products and the Buffalo.)
    K: Kennedy Halves
    N: Native American Dollars
    P: Presibucks (when they were produced.)
    R: Regular (Maybe Repeating, since it's used for annual Mint products.)
    X: Special Mint Product (See below.)

    U is a letter that uniquely identifies the product. An exception exists for some ATB quarter products, where U is "B" for bags, or "R" for rolls.

    V is only used if the product is an ATB bag or roll, and is a letter that uniquely identifies a product. (Examples below.)

    Special Mint Products:

    Special Mint Products are US Mint products that don't involve congressional mandates. Examples are the centennial gold coins, The American Liberty products and the 2017 EU set. All are/were single year issues.

    That probably means the 2018 1/10ozt gold American Liberty (18XF) and the 2018 San Francisco Mint Silver Reverse Proof Set (18XC) WILL ALSO BE SINGLE YEAR ISSUES. (Did I yell that loud enough? BTW, The SFMSRP set is to commemorate 50 years of silver proof sets. (That's sort of a misnomer, since all proof sets prior to 1965 were silver...)

    Some America the Beautiful examples:

    America the Beautiful quarters, Normal products. (17=2017, A=ATB series, then a product identifier.)

    17AA: 2017 ATB QTR UNC SET
    17AD: 2017 ATB QTR 3-COIN SET - EFF MNDS
    17AE: 2017 ATB QTR 3-COIN SET - DOUGLASS
    17AJ: 2017 ATB SILVER UNC 5 OZ - EFF MNDS
    17AK: 2017 ATB SILVER UNC 5 OZ - DOUGLASS

    America the Beautiful quarters, Roll and bag products. (17=2017, A=ATB series, "B" is for bag and "R" is for roll, then a product identifier.)

    17ABA: 2017 ATB QTR 100-COIN BAG - EFF MNDS (P)
    17ABB: 2017 ATB QTR 100-COIN BAG - EFF MNDS (D)
    17ABC: 2017 ATB QTR 100-COIN BAG - EFF MNDS (S)
    17ABD: 2017 ATB QTR 100-COIN BAG - DOUGLASS (P)
    17ABE: 2017 ATB QTR 100-COIN BAG - DOUGLASS (D)
    17ABF: 2017 ATB QTR 100-COIN BAG - DOUGLASS (S)
    17ARA: 2017 ATB QTR 2-ROLL SET - EFF MNDS (P & D)
    17ARB: 2017 ATB QTR 40-COIN ROLL - EFF MNDS (S)
    17ARC: 2017 ATB QTR 3-ROLL SET - EFF MNDS (P & D & S)
    17ARD: 2017 ATB QTR 2-ROLL SET - DOUGLASS (P & D)
    17ARE: 2017 ATB QTR 40-COIN ROLL - DOUGLASS (S)
    17ARF: 2017 ATB QTR 3-ROLL SET - DOUGLASS (P & D & S)

    For yearly products, the two suffix characters have been consistant since the change. ("yy" is the year.)

    Precious Medals

    yyEA: AM EAGLE SILVER PROOF 1 OZ
    yyEB: AM EAGLE GOLD PROOF 1 OZ
    yyEC: AM EAGLE GOLD PROOF 1/2 OZ
    yyED: AM EAGLE GOLD PROOF 1/4 OZ
    yyEE: AM EAGLE GOLD PROOF 1/10 OZ
    yyEF: AM EAGLE GOLD PROOF 4-COIN SET
    yyEG: AM EAGLE SILVER UNC 1 OZ
    yyEH: AM EAGLE GOLD UNC 1 OZ
    yyEJ: AM EAGLE PLATINUM PROOF 1 OZ
    yyEL: AM BUFFALO GOLD PROOF 1 OZ


    Regular (Annual sets)

    yyRC: LIMITED EDITION SILVER PROOF SET
    yyRD: BIRTH SET
    yyRE: HAPPY BIRTHDAY SET
    yyRF: CONGRATULATIONS SET
    yyRG: PROOF SET
    yyRH: SILVER PROOF SET
    yyRJ: UNC SET

    Kennedy Halves

    yyKA: HALF-DOLLAR 200-COIN BAG (P & D)
    yyKB: HALF-DOLLAR 2-ROLL SET (P & D)

    Native American Dollars

    yyNA: NA $1 25-COIN ROLL (P)
    yyNB: NA $1 25-COIN ROLL (D)
    yyNC: NA $1 250-COIN BOX (P)
    yyND: NA $1 250-COIN BOX (D)
    yyNE: NA $1 100-COIN BAG (P)
    yyNF: NA $1 100-COIN BAG (D)

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