San Francisco Circulating Coins
TigersFan2
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I've been thinking about what the U.S. Mint could do to make coin collecting more attractive to beginners. Of course going back to copper and silver coins would easily do the trick, but that's not practical. The U.S. Mint seems to like minting commemorative coins for circulation through the state quarters, ATB quarters, Jefferson nickel designs, Sac dollars and presidential dollars. But I have another idea...
MINT COINS FOR ALL DENOMINATIONS FOR CIRCULATION AT SAN FRANCISCO.
If pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters were minted at Philadelphia, Denver and San Francisco, there would be more coins to collect for creating date/mm sets. Looking through loose change would be more interesting because there would be more variation to find. I remember as a kid it was interesting to look for the S-mint pennies and nickels.
I don't know what the capacity is for producing circulating coins at San Francisco and whether some of the mintage from Philadelphia and Denver could be moved there.
Anyway, I miss seeing San Francisco coinage in my pocket.
MINT COINS FOR ALL DENOMINATIONS FOR CIRCULATION AT SAN FRANCISCO.
If pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters were minted at Philadelphia, Denver and San Francisco, there would be more coins to collect for creating date/mm sets. Looking through loose change would be more interesting because there would be more variation to find. I remember as a kid it was interesting to look for the S-mint pennies and nickels.
I don't know what the capacity is for producing circulating coins at San Francisco and whether some of the mintage from Philadelphia and Denver could be moved there.
Anyway, I miss seeing San Francisco coinage in my pocket.
I love the 3 P's: PB&J, PBR and PCGS.
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Comments
I think it would not be a good idea.
Why?
I think it would be a good idea
Why?
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Define beginner. Do you mean YN or a 50 year old with substantial resources?
Someone who doesn't currently collect coins.
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Sounds like a great idea. Sure the cost of increasing the capacity of the San Francisco Mint and nationwide distribution could be offset by layoffs and production cost savings at the the other mints. But if each person in the US bought just one mint set resulting in a $1 profit, that would raise $360,000,000. Plus everyone would be able to find S minted coins in their pocket chage. A win-win. I think if you started one of those on-line petitions to get the ball rolling, the power of the people could make it happen.
This is why they will not do it.....
Hoard the keys.
bucks), adding an S to the coins would be inconsequential. And 360 million people would
not buy a mint set.... Cheers, RickO
I can't get excited about those old German or Russian coins featuring portraits of Baron Von whatever with a bird on his head any more than I can some of the designs remaining today on US coins.
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Growing up, I always liked S coins because they were more exotic to me - just part of being from California.
That's my perspective. The "S" mintmark is nostalgia. I'd simply like to see it with modern circulating coinage.
Changing the design to something that inspires people about our great nation with a resurrection of artistry rather than long running series featuring old dead guys would be a good start to improving the interest in the hobby.
I agree. But there's so much politics behind having dead presidents on coinage, I don't think it'll ever change. Remember there was a small movement to get Reagan on the dime with the discussion getting political about a Republican replacing a Democrat. It's like dead presidents on coins serves some political party status quo. And remember the uproar from the state of Virginia when they removed Monticello from the reverse of the nickel for a couple of years. Lincoln, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Washington have become sacred cows.
I was recently thinking about 1909 and this country minting the first dead president coin with the Lincoln penny. In 1909, it was 44 years after Lincoln was assassinated and there were still many living people who had lived through the Civil War and remembered Lincoln as president and his assassination. To them, putting Lincoln on the cent was a personal experience. Similar to putting Kennedy on the half not long after his assassination.
And now there's the talk of who will replace Hamilton on the $10 bill, which will happen. But the politics... it must be a woman. And it's virtually impossible to place any dead human on a coin without politics coming into the decision. And people want Jackson removed from the $20 bill due to his early 19th century racist views. And that Jefferson and Washington both owned slavery, meaning that even the hallowed founders of our country still have issues.
I agree that I'd rather see our coinage depict ideals rather than honor dead people. I'd also like to see coin designs with greater relief than the flat designs of the past 40 years.
It would be like a giant Easter egg hunt.
Intentionally produce some clad nickels and/or nickel dimes and quarters. 50-100 of each and distribute one in a bag and salt them around the country. Publish the mintage.
It would be like a giant Easter egg hunt.
Interesting thought, but they'd never make it into circulation. I'd expect that banks would spot them first. With that small of a mintage with such high value, at minimum bank tellers would keep an eye out. Or people buying bags from the mint would find them. Zero chance of finding in circulation.
this generality is a common sentiment today just as it was 150 years ago. the public in general warmed about as much to the Morgan Dollar as we did to the SBA. it bears remembering that the public doesn't really notice the designs or care about the intrinsic value of the metal content of a coin, that tends to be limited to the 30-50K of us that collect(my estimate).
with the dumbing of America now in full swing our Uncle could probably save a lot of money by just punching out dated blanks with a denomination on them --- I doubt many would object or really care.
the 30-50k would raise a ruckus!!
I agree that I'd rather see our coinage depict ideals rather than honor dead people.
perhaps there's a shortage of ideals.
Many collectors forget that the primary purpose for business strike coins is provide coinage for commerce. Aside from Proofs and other not for circulation issues, coins are made to used.
Years ago the San Francisco Mint did issue coins for general circulation. Virtually none of them stayed in circulation for very long. Collectors and speculators snapped them up and hoarded them.
The next question is, do we really need more stuff to collect given the seemingly endless list of stuff the mint now issues. Very few collectors can afford what's out there now, and it's hard to tell how much interest there would be in even coins to put into albums.
We need fewer coins not less. It's amazing that it can only be feast or famine. When I was kid collector in the '60s and a young adult collector in the '70s we were starved for new coins. The 1964 Kennedy Half Dollar was almost like a holiday for coin collectors when the banks got them. The introduction of the Eisenhower in 1971 was a big deal. The Bicentennial coins were a partial disappointment because there were no gold coins despite the fact that the ban on collecting and owning gold had been lifted.
Then the Congress introduced the Washington half dollar in 1982 and then the Los Angeles Olympics in 1983-4. That opened the floodgates, and now we get more coins that we want, and a lot of them end up selling for melt.
I do agree that making extremely small mintages just to stimulate collecting might be counterproductive but I would like to see the mint go back to the policy in effect before 1932; strike to order regardless of how few coins might be produced in a given year.
... but I see no point in making coins just to make coins.
Look at the mintages of the state quarters compared with pre-state quarters. State quarters were produced just to produce coins and not for commerce needs.
... but I see no point in making coins just to make coins.
Look at the mintages of the state quarters compared with pre-state quarters. State quarters were produced just to produce coins and not for commerce needs.
The mintages are high because people were squirelling them away. By the time they quit in 2008 mintages were high because the economic need for them increased.
They didn't mint the coins just to sit in storage or merely to get people to save them. They weren't principally intended to get people to collect coins. They were minted to commemorate the states and introduce new artwork and some variety in our staid coinage. In 1999 our circulating coinage was boring and obsolete. Now it's merely obsolete and the quarters, at least, have attracted lots of attention and made many people proud of their state or country. Sights that some people didn't even know existed is now on their coins which act as calling cards not only for collecting and collectors but for the landmarks as well.
I'd say the states coins are still doing a lot of heavy lifting and aren't just for show.
just how high the mintages of these could go. It wouldn't surprise me to see
mintages of three billion a year again for a while. After only a brief period of
such high mintages the old eagle revers coins would be getting swamped by the
new mintages and would seem to most people to be "disappearing". This would
result in people saving the old coins leading to even higher mintages and more
swamping.
It's quite feasible that with the cessation of penny production that it actually
would be economical to begin minting coins at San Francisco and/ or West Point.
If so it would be great to see them add the mintmark and it might just act to in-
crease the popularity of collecting.
I just don't want to see some contrivance to add low mintage coins to the mix.
The circulating clad sets are very interesting sets and such contrivances would
serve to cheapen them. There are a lot of clad quarters out there that have chang-
ed hands thousands of times. Their importance is determined mostly by their us-
age. The presense of coins made just for collectors would tend to cheapen them.
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They did mint some gold medals:
Perhaps they just need to make sure San Francisco issued more coins than Philadelphia and Denver.
San Francisco does mint quarters but they don't release them for circulation.
Currently the average mintage for S-mint circulation-strike ATB quarters is about 1.4 million. I occasionally buy 100-coin bags of designs I like for $35 per bag from the Mint, and spend some of them. No telling whether they will ever be "discovered" by future collectors, but it's fun to imagine someone who collects P and D quarters from circulation finding an "S" quarter in change and trying to figure out what it is.
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San Francisco does mint quarters but they don't release them for circulation.
Currently the average mintage for S-mint circulation-strike ATB quarters is about 1.4 million. I occasionally buy 100-coin bags of designs I like for $35 per bag from the Mint, and spend some of them. No telling whether they will ever be "discovered" by future collectors, but it's fun to imagine someone who collects P and D quarters from circulation finding an "S" quarter in change and trying to figure out what it is.
Great idea!
The mintages are high because people were squirelling them away. By the time they quit in 2008 mintages were high because the economic need for them increased.
They didn't mint the coins just to sit in storage or merely to get people to save them. They weren't principally intended to get people to collect coins. They were minted to commemorate the states and introduce new artwork and some variety in our staid coinage. In 1999 our circulating coinage was boring and obsolete. Now it's merely obsolete and the quarters, at least, have attracted lots of attention and made many people proud of their state or country. Sights that some people didn't even know existed is now on their coins which act as calling cards not only for collecting and collectors but for the landmarks as well.
I'd say the states coins are still doing a lot of heavy lifting and aren't just for show.
I will disagree with you somewhat. Look at what happened to the quantity minted starting in 2009 with the territories quarters and beginning in 2010 with the ATB quarters. Mintages went way down from the 1999-2008 state quarter mintages. The 2009-2014 mintages are even below the pre-1999 mintages. Only in 2015 have ATB quarter mintages gotten back in the quantity similar to the state quarters or pre-1999 quarters. I suggest the reason mintages have been so low 2009-2014 is that there was a tremendous inventory from the over-mintage of state quarters.
The lowest mintage state quarter was... Oklahoma at 416,600,000.