The mint already does it, has for years. The coins are not offered for sale however. Instead they are sometimes given as a presentation piece to a person of note - or they are relegated to a museum. Of course this applies to those coins that fit within the strictest definition of the phrase first strike - like the first example of any of the State Quarters. But, the phrase first strike really applies to many coins for it is usually defined and the first coin struck with a new pair of dies, and even that is a misnomer. For quite often the first few coins, maybe even the first dozen, struck by a new pair of dies are of very poor quality and they are usually tossed into the melting bin. It is the coins that come after the first strikes, after all of the adjustments have been made, that are of the highest quality. And these coins go into the hoppers for circulation or placement into sets if it is mint sets or Proofs that are being struck. As for the dies, this happens too. But the dies are defaced, totally. There is no remanant of any design left. The mint will never release dies that could be used to produce coins. And nd - thanks
Check out the mint sets. They change dies every 30,000 strikes so every 30,000th coin in the sets are a first strike. Clad dies lose the telltale sign of being new by the tenth or twelft strike usually. You can find lots of these and you'll even see little differences in how the dies are prepared. Circulation issues can go over one and a half million per die pair so these are much more difficult in coins made for circulation.
