Recently in other threads and post the topic of dies has come up. I was wondering if anyone could answer some questions for me. 1. How many coins does the average die strike? 2. Is there some place to research the number of dies used for a particular year and mint run? 3. Do they deface all of the dies and hubs or do they retain the hubs and master dies? (I am referring to those in which the date has been added. I realize the true master hubs are stored for reuse when needed.) 4. Can someone purchase a hub, and if so is it destroyed also?
It can vary anywhere from a few thousand to hundreds of thousands. Depends on which coin and date - much inofrmation like this is known for many older coins and is contained in specialty books. Breen's Encyclopedia contains a lot of this type of information. If you are asking about more modern coins, the mint very seldom releases this information. But it can be obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. Could be wrong, but I believe all working dies and hubs are destroyed. As for the masters - don't know. I don't even know if the mint would tell you. But you can always ask them. This I have never heard of - doesn't mean it hasn't happened though. The US Mint used to do a lot of strange things.
