US Mint Coin Production March 2010

During March 2010, the United States Mint had their highest monthly coin production since Mint News Blog started tracking the monthly changes. Contributing factors were an increase in production of cents and the start of production for quarters.

The Philadelphia and Denver Mint facilities produced a combined 384.42 million coins in March, which included cents, quarters, Native American Dollars, and Presidential Dollars. The total production this month nearly matched the production of the first two months, bringing the year to date total to 797.23 million.

With the first quarter of the year already passed, the US Mint is still on pace for another year of extremely low coin production. During 2009 total coin production was 3,548 million.

The table below displays the breakdown of production by denomination and Mint for the month and the year to date.

2010 US Mint Coin Production Figures
	March 2010	YTD
Lincoln Cent - Denver	165.20 M	294.00 M
Lincoln Cent - Phil.	128.80 M	278.03 M
Jefferson Nickel - Denver	0	0
Jefferson Nickel - Phil.	0	0
Roosevelt Dime - Denver	0	0
Roosevelt Dime - Phil.	0	19.00 M
Quarters - Denver	19.00 M	19.00 M
Quarters - Phil.	23.40 M	23.40 M
Kennedy Half - Denver	0	1.70 M
Kennedy Half - Phil.	0	1.80 M
Native Am Dollar - Denver	0	14.00 M
Native Am Dollar - Phil.	8.26 M	32.06 M
Pres Dollar - Denver	21.42 M	58.38 M
Pres Dollar - Phil.	18.34 M	55.86 M
Total	384.42 M	797.23 M

The US Mint produced 294 million one cent coins during March. This was divided between 165.20 million at the Philadelphia Mint and 128.80 million at the Denver Mint. Last year, cent production was split between four different designs, resulting in relatively low mintages for each. This year, all production will be for the new Union Shield design, which will result in a comparatively large mintage.

There was no production of nickels or dimes during the month. Nickels have not been produced at all for the year to date. Last month, there were 19 million dimes produced at the Philadelphia Mint. To my knowledge, none of the 2010 Roosevelt Dimes have been spotted in the channels of circulation yet.

The first quarters of the year were produced with 23.40 million at the Philadelphia Mint and 19.00 million at the Denver Mint. These are presumably Hot Springs Quarters, the first release of the America the Beautiful Quarters series coming on April 19, 2010. It seems likely mintages for the new series will be on the low end, which might give prove a motivating factor to collect the series.

During the month, there were 18.34 million Presidential Dollars produced at the Philadelphia Mint and 21.42 million produced at the Denver Mint. The previous production of Presidential Dollars for the year was entirely Millard Fillmore Dollars with the final mintages already announced as 37.52 million Philadelphia strikes and 36.96 Denver strikes.