US Mint 2009 Coin Production Through May

As mentioned in one of yesterday's posts, the US Mint has updated their coin production figures to reflect coins minted in May. With production down drastically from prior years, many collectors have been closely watching these numbers to identify low mintage key date coins.

This year has been a perfect storm for creating low mintage circulating coins. The slow economy has caused lower demand for newly minted coins as hoards of old coinage reentered circulation. The lower demand translated into lower production, which was further reduced due to the rotating designs of the cent, quarter, and dollar coins. Coin production is not only a fraction of the norm, but for three denominations, it must be split between four, five, and six different designs.

The Guam Quarter has gotten the most attention following the release of the production figures. There were 42.6 million coins produced by the Philadelphia mint and 45 million produced by the Denver Mint. Both of these numbers fall below the previous low point reached with the 2009-P Puerto Rico Quarter. A commenter provided the interesting observation that if the US Mint sells the same number of Guam Quarters through their bags and rolls program, it would represent a whopping 10% of the entire mintage.

The number of 2009 Lincoln Cents produced moved up to 1,145,600,000. The Birthplace design had a total of 634.8 million coins produced comprised of 284.8 million Philadelphia minted coins and 350 million Denver minted coins. Backing out these numbers means that that 510.8 million of the Formative Years Cents have been minted so far. With the next design release not until August, it's likely that the Formative Years will continue to be produced and possibly bring the total mintage above the level of the first design.

Figures for the 2009 Native American Dollar took a big jump over the prior month. Under the authorizing legislation, the US Mint is required to produced at least 20% of all dollar coins with the Native American design. They are now ahead of their quota on a percentage basis.

Production figures for the Jefferson Nickel and Roosevelt Dime remain unchanged from the prior month. No new Presidential Dollar production figures are available this month. The totals for William Henry Harrison and John Tyler Dollars had been known from prior updates.

Figures from the US Mint's coin production page are listed below.

2009 Coin Production January 2009 to May 2009
	Philadelphia	Denver	Total
Lincoln Cent	596.00 M	549.60 M	1,145.60 M
Jefferson Nickel	39.84 M	39.36 M	79.20 M
Roosevelt Dime	96.50 M	49.50 M	146.00 M
District of Columbia Quarter	83.60 M	88.80 M	172.40 M
Puerto Rico Quarter	53.20 M	86.00 M	139.20 M
Guam Quarter	45.00 M	42.60 M	87.00 M
Kennedy Half Dollar	1.70 M	1.70 M	3.40 M
W.H. Harrison Dollar	43.26 M	55.16 M	98.42 M
John Tyler Dollar	43.54 M	43.54 M	87.08 M
Native American Dollar	27.30 M	23.80 M	51.10 M