US Mint Coin Production August 2009

The US Mint has just updated their coin production figures to include the past month of August. This update includes the final production figures for the James K. Polk Dollar, which are somewhat surprising.

The table below lists the circulating coins produced by the United States Mint during the month of July 2009. These numbers are obtained by comparing the year to date totals available last month to the recently updated numbers.

US Mint Coin Production August 2009
	Philadelphia	Denver	Total
Cents	145.2 M	141.6 M	286.8 M
Nickels	0	0	0
Dimes	0	0	0
Quarters	40.2 M	22.4 M	62.6 M
Halves	0	0	0
Presidential Dollars	2.24 M	0	2.24 M
Native Amer Dollars	0	0	0
Total	187.64 M	164.0 M	351.64 M

The additional following table shows the year to date coin production totals for each denomination. In the situations where one denomination has multiple designs, the production figure indicates the final numbers for that design.

2009 Coin Production January 2009 to August 2009
	Philadelphia	Denver	Total
Birthplace Cent	284.40 M	350.40 M	634.80 M
Formative Yrs Cent	376.00 M	363.60 M	739.60 M
Jefferson Nickel	39.84 M	46.80 M	86.64 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	87.60 M
Am Samoa Quarter	42.60 M	39.60 M	82.20 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
James K. Polk Dollar	41.72 M	46.62 M	88.34 M
Native American Dollar	27.30 M	23.80 M	51.10 M

The overall number of coins produced by the US Mint rose compared to the previous month when 321.36 million coins had been produced. Production was once again concentrated in the one cent denomination. The next highest production took place for the quarter, followed by only 2.24 million Presidential Dollars produced. There was no production of nickels, dimes, halves, or Native American Dollars.

The James K. Polk Dollar was the only coin design to have new final production figures listed for this month. The Philadelphia Mint produced 41.72 million coins and the Denver Mint produced 46.62 million. While the Philadelphia Mint number does represent a new low for an individual coin, the combined mintage across both mints shows a slight increase from the prior design.

In general, coin production numbers seem to be leveling off and inching higher. Until now, a pattern was in place this year for each subsequent quarter and dollar design to have a lower mintage than the one before. This pattern is now broken for the Presidential Dollars, and this month's heavy quarter production suggests that the pattern might also be broken for quarters with the next release.