It was minted in Philadelphia which did'nt use a MM till lately and on silver war nickles in the 40s . rzage
WELCOME TO THE FORUM. Along time ago the people in Philidelphia were to embarrassed to let anyone know about the place so they left off letters that would give them away. Of course you realize I'm joking. I never did know why they never put that P on the older coins. Maybe no room for a P?
Actually it was the main mint and the only mint for awhile , they didn't need to put a MM on because everybody knew that's where they came from , later when they added branch mints the branch mints put their MM on to tell it apart from the Philly coins , so Philadelphia never really had a need to use a MM . Even today most collectors would know a coin came from Philly even if they hadn't srarted using the P for Philly . rzage
That's not completely true. As we recently learned, Lincoln cents without a mint mark from 1973-1986 were struck in Philadelphia and West Point. But, other than that...no MM means Philadelphia. The only reason I bring this up is because it was news to me when I read it here: http://www.cointalk.org/showthread.php?t=42402