Fifty years of collecting. How could I have not noticed this before? Apparently the decision was made partway through 1917 to change the mintmark to the reverse. Was that just an aesthetics decision?
Director of the United States Mint Friedrich Johannes Hugo “F.H.” von Engelken verbally ordered the mintmark be relocated from the obverse of the coin to the reverse. He stated that “the obverse mintmarks had the appearance of a defect in the die and were entirely too prominent.” Coin Week, Jan. 09, 2020
