Happy New Year! OK, no looking in the Redbook until you've made your best guesses! A few rules: a. If a mint produced more than one design of a particular denomination in a year, it is the total production of all designs for that denomination that will be used. b. Only circulation strikes of regular coinage count. Proofs, patterns, commemoratives and bullion coins don't count. The quiz: 1. What was the first year that over a billion coins of a single denomination was produced by one mint? And what was the denomination and mint? Answer to the second question should be easy. Answer to the first not so easy. 2. OK, now try this: What was the first year that a single mint produced over a billion coins of all denominations combined? And what was the mint? If you got the first question right without looking it up (I didn't), I bow low to your numismatic knowledge (or good luck). Cal
Part 1: my mind jumps to the 1964 and 1964D Jefferson nickels, but those were produced through 1967 so they don't fit the annual criteria. So I'm guessing sometime after that and maybe not until the bicentennial Lincoln cents (Philly and Denver). 2009? Part 2: 1976 Bicentennial coinage, Philly?
Okay, question for the first two respondents: how can the first year a Mint produced more than 1 billion of all denominations combined be later than the first year a Mint produced more than 1 billion of a single denomination? Maybe you're reading it as "produced more than 1 billion of each denomination". If that's the case, I'd say "no answer", because nobody ever produced a billion three-cent silvers.
Interesting after the fact look up...My second guess on Part 1 would have been correct...but I talked myself out of it. Part 2 wasn't even close as a result. Fun questions though!
It looks like I guessed the right decade (i.e. within ten years of the right answer) for part 1, and probably the same for part 2, but I won't know until I get home to the Red Book. I am pretty confident about which single denomination was first across the mark, and which mint.
I had to read the OP question a few times to understand what he was asking, and I guess I still didn't get it or think it out properly, so I'll edit it. Thanks.
You got 'em both right! Go to the head of the class! 1.4 billion cents were produced in Philly in 1944 ... first time over a billion of a single denomiation was produced in one year by one mint. First time a mint produced over a billion of all denominations combined was 1941. Again it was the Philly mint. Here's the breakdown by denomination: 887M cents, 203M nickels, 175M dimes, 79M quarters, and 24M halves. It adds up to a cool 1.4 billion coins. 1940 was also plentiful with the Philly churning out 874M coins. It was the economic boom coming out of the great depression that created the demand for more coins. Cal
