Hello - I am a recent member to the CoinTalk community. I am wondering why the mintages of the varieties of certain popular U.S. coins seem to be unknown, even as published in the Red Book. The coins in question are: What is the breakdown among the 1960 and 1960D large and small date Lincoln Memorial cents? The Red Book just shows combined mintages. What is the breakdown among the seven varieties of copper and zinc, large and small date, 1982 and 1982D Lincoln Memorial cents? Again, the Red Book just shows combined mintages. Is there a mintage figure for the 1945 Micro S Winged Liberty head dime? Have final sales numbers ever been published for the Bicentennial series of silver clad quarters, half dollars, and dollars. All I have seen is 11 million uncirculated and 4 million proofs were minted, but the number available is actually smaller as unsold pieces were melted down. I realize that the Mint may have not kept track of, or published, this information. If that is the case, are there any reasonable estimates of the mintages of these varieties? Does anyone know if the mintages have been estimated or published? I wonder if Q. David Bowers has ever had this question posed to him - he seems like the most knowledgeable person in numismatics today. Thanks in advance to anyone who can come up with the answers. Jerry Diekmann edited
There is no known answer because the mint does not track them, cannot track them. They don't even know there are varieties until long after all the minting is completed. The many varieties and errors are all discovered by collectors after the fact. As for the '60 small/large - I've seen estimates of a 60/40 split if memory serves.
Hi Jerry. Mr Bowers would give you the same information Doug just did. It's really tough to guess numbers the mint never gave or just didn't know. Jerry, you might wish to edit your email address from your post. It could cause you spam problem. Welcome to the forum.
OK - I didn't know what a "tag" or "trackback" is. Do I need to list my E-mail address or will all CoinTalk members have it?
That's up to you. You choose in your personal settings. But posting it is a bad idea, It allows the net bots to harvest your email. I edited it out for you.
I was an ardent collector of the 1960 small dates that year and the 1960D sm. dates were quite common and the 1960P was the rarest by far and sold for around $3. back then, you could pick up the "D's" for .30 to .50 cents. Hope this helps.
I can understand them not having mintages of the varieties, but after 32 years still not knowing the final mintage of the silver bicentennials has always seemed strange to me. After all they know how many they made, they should know how many they sold and they should know how many they melted down. It would seem to me that if they subtracted the melted from the made they should know what the final numbers are.
