OK, with proofs and commemoratives, we can get coins with really low mintages. Let me create a sub-category: What US coin do you own, and provide a pic, that is regular, business strike, for circulation/currency, that has the lowest mintage? Further, the coin must be either a cent, nickel, dime, quarter, half, or dollar -- and it must have been minted from the years 1900-1999. (I.e., no mint sets, no proofs, no commemoratives, no recent gold pieces, and etc).
1922 no D cent with strong reverse. I have a photo on my computer at home. I'll post the pic later tonight. Very best regards, collect89
You say circulating, so I'm going to use my gold piece The $2.5 Indians were used as circulating coins... So these should count 1912 $2.5 Mintage of 616,000
Can we go back to 1889? Puhleeez? I have no real low-mintage 20th century coins (that aren't proofs). Probably my lowest is this 12-S nickel (238k mintage): Second lowest would be this woodgrain 1909-S (mintage of 1.8M, IIRC):
Wow -- I know next to nothing about Barbers and didn't realize that. Nice! Can you (or anyone) answer me this question: why is a 1901-S worth so much more than a 1913-S? (mintage for 01-S is 72,664). And for that matter, another question: why did they make so few? Thanks!
Here is a nice MS 66 example for sale. :smile http://coins.ha.com/common/view_item.php?Sale_No=1125&Lot_No=656#Photo Very best regards, collect89 P.S. I'd like to find a nice "Fine" example but I doubt I could afford it.
The 1889 must be something gold - but if you do that go back even further and allow proofs. The I can post my 1878(mintage 2500) proof shield nickel. Of course I have a 1922 no D - but I consider that coin really an error.
Isn't the year 2000 still 20th century? The lowest mintage coin I have is my 1915-P Barber Half, 138,000
Well, I can't beat that coin or a 1916 SLQ, but how about this: 1915 Barber Half Dollar VG8 Mintage: 138,000
These were minted to by rolls of stamps. Certainly a for circulation piece. From my collection .Mintage: Circulation strikes: 5,000 Proofs: 39
There is a theory that a lot of the 01-S quarters were lost during the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire. As to why they made so few, I have no idea.
Never heard that theory before. But when I went back to read a Barber Quarter article I had saved it said the following: "There is really no good way of explaining why the higher mintage 1901-S has always been so much more expensive than the 1913-S. It is clear that for some reason the 1901-S is not found in the numbers we would expect today based on its mintage. It has seemingly always been that way even though no one can come up with a reason why that is the case. The best observation might well be that almost all San Francisco dates from just prior to the earthquake of 1906 are more expensive that lower mintage dates that came after the destruction. It seems like a stretch to suggest that the 1901-S was an earthquake victim, but it may be the one way of explaining the situation that makes some sense other than simply observing that it did not survive. There actually is a certain amount of evidence to suggest that as a possibility." The full article can be found here: http://numismaticnews.net/article/Big_Three_dates_dominate_Barber_quarters/ Pretty cool. My lowest mintage 20th Century business strike coin is my 1909-D $20 with a mintage of only 52,500
