US Mint in 1815- Slowest year ever

Some of you have posted some really nice thought provoking threads lately so I figured I'd share this interesting bit of info I recently happened upon. I discovered this as a result of a desire to fill the large size CB quarter spot in my US type. For the small size I went with the first year so I took a look at the first year of the large size. And there it was all by itself....

So I dug a little deeper. The last year of quarter dollar production was 1807 draped busts. Then there were no quarters for 8 years! Naturally the War of 1812 played some part as it went on for roughly 3 years, ending in early 1815.

Then I looked up the mintage of 1815 quarters. The capped bust design was rolled out for quarters for the first time and 89,235 were minted using a single known die pair. (Estimated less than 1900 of them still in existence.) Then they wouldn't make anymore for 3 more years.

Apparently there was correspondence from Bailly Blanchard who was the head cashier of the Planters Bank of New Orleans, and mint director Robert L Patterson at the time with Blanchard pleading with Patterson to return only quarter dollars in exchange for the banks deposit of silver. After much hesitation, since no quarter dollar dies were available, Patterson gave into Blanchards request and production of the quarter dollar denom. was resumed.

It really makes you wonder how much of the mintage was from that New Orleans bank silver and how many got sent back there. Maybe all of it? Why wouldn't they mint 90k? The silver they had on hand must have run out.

Out of curiousity, I decided to look into what DID the mint in Philadelphia produce in 1815. Well, they produced 69,232 quarters. (20,003 more 1815s would be produced the following year in 1816, or at least reported that year if made in 1815) And 635 gold half eagles (11 known in existence). Production ramped up at the end of the year of 1815, producing over 300k large cents. But there are no large cents dated 1815. The 47,150 half dollars dated 1815, were made at the end of the year and reported on the 1816 report. All in all a very slow year. Reasons stated by the official report was lack of bullion and shortage of copper planchets which had been being procured from England up to that point. New ones wouldn't have been coming in during the conflict after the trade embargo went into effect. The mint's supply of copper planchets was exhausted in 1814. And few were sending their bullion in to be converted to coins, likely due to the worry of it being confiscated if the U.S. lost the war. People were hoarding what they had and hiding it away.

From what I understand on the unknown large cents produced, its possible they could have begun making the 1816s with the new matron head design but most feel they didn't have the dies ready for use on those either. So it's more likely that they made more of the 1814s using the old dies and inflating their official mintage number.

Hopefully you found this as interesting as I did. If anyone has more to add about it, feel free to expand. This is an example I recently picked up for the type set spot. An honest VG-8 by PCGS.



Edit: Updated to reflect accurate figures based off of the actual mint ledgers.

 

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As an additional side note, since capped bust quarters aren’t very common, the two types are rarely seen together. Here is the size comparison between the original large size and the newer small size. The size went from 27.5mm to 24.3 mm in 1831 and is fairly noticeable. The new smaller size had much nicer rims.

 

https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/book/307

 

It’s amazing that report exists and was obtainable. I wonder why he left off the half dollar and cent production?

 

That was on the page, I just didnt snap it.

 

According to that report the mintage for quarters listed in the red book is off by 20k.

 

There were often coins minted early in the year using the prior year's date. Making dies was difficult and expensive - waste not want not.

 

Very interesting description of the year 1815, numismatically. Thank you, @Vess1 .

That year is a problem for collectors.... if you want a coin dated 1815 you have only two choices: an 1815 half dollar, or the more available quarter. 1815 halves have always been pricey, (even though it is not exactly rare at something like 800 examples estimated extant?). For this reason I opted for the more available quarter instead.

 

All of the reports since 1795:

https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/publisherdetail/51


They range from a couple of pages reporting production to long discussions of technology

 

Thanks to Burton for posting the link to those reports, I was able to answer my own question looking at the report for 1816:



Since there were no 1816 quarters, it was concluded that these 20,003 additional made in either late 1815 and delivered in 1816 or actually produced in 1816 with the 1815 die,were tacked on to the official 1815 mintage, totaling the 89,235 number we see printed in the Redbook.

The half dollars I asked about that didn't show up on 1816s report for 1815, show up on this 1817 report for 1816s production. They were produced in December of 1815, but not delivered until Jan. 1816. So did not show up on a report until the Jan. 1817 report came out, which lays out deliveries for the full year of 1816.

Note the total number of copper cents listed below it, 2,820,982 is the number printed in the Redbook with no additions from the following year. With the halves produced in Dec. 1815 and possibly even the 20k quarters and no gold coined, it appears all the mint did in 1816 was produce those new Matron head cents and nothing else! I guess 1816 was a boring year too.
It stands to reason that not much of the coinage produced during that time would have survived in nice condition as broad acceptance of collecting wouldnt have been a thing yet. Whatever coins made would've been needed (maybe desperately) for commerce and circulated for decades. Only a few being forgotten about surviving in mint state.

 

Due to the war of 1812, people hoarded silver bullion and brought very little to the mint for coining until late 1815. The halves aren't exactly rare, having been produced to the tune of over 47,000, but everybody wants one, including me.

 

The 1815 halves were minted in December of 1815 then delivered in January of 1816. The next day the mint burned down and no more silver was minted that year.

An interesting bit of trivia about the 1815half dollar is that the entire lot of coins paid out in early Jan 1816 were paid out to a single customer: Jones, Firth and Co. How often can we trace provenance and know with certainty the original owner?

 

Another one of those coins from Jones, Firth an Co.

 

Thanks for sharing that one! I've updated the original post a bit to better explain the reasons for the slow year and updated the numbers to accurately reflect the ledgers.

Any coin that has an estimated survival quantity of 800 I would call pretty rare, just because very few of them are for sale at any given point. I guess I'm looking at it from an availability standpoint.
I saw a description online saying "the 1815 quarter is abundant in MS grades to fufill demand." NGC has graded 50 of them in MS grades! lol Abundant wouldn't be the term I'd use.
The quarters are estimated to have approximately 1900 left in existence and there's only 48 currently listed on ebay in all conditions. Not impossible to get one but it's not exactly a huge selection and many are slicks, damaged, or extremely valuable. Surviving population doesn't mean high (or even reasonable) quality that you want to pay for and own, either.
If you walk in to a coin show, there's probably not going to be an example of one there and there certainly wont be a half in any shape. I know there are rarer coins out there that there's only a handful of examples of. Would call them extreme rarities. I know there's a scale. 1815 is a tougher date for sure.

 

Great info! I changed the original post info to reflect this.

I found a Coinweek article talking about this that stated the company was actively involved in international trade so it was quite likely that many of them were shipped overseas and later melted. One was discovered in a forgotten collection in a family's cupboard in England that ended up coming back to the US and being preserved and encapsulated by PCGS as a MS-63 being valued at $70,000.

 

Great job

 

So cool

 

Thanks for sharing this cool information!

 

Generally the early mint coined based on deposits. There wasn't a fund to purchase precious metal to be coined on spec.

For example the inital 1792 Half Dismes were coined from 150 "Spanish" dollars (probably Mexican) that Thomas Jefferson deposited to be coined into the 1,500 Half Dismes.

As a general rule, there was no need for Federal silver coinage. Plenty of Mexican 1 to 8 reales. Plus French, English and some others circulated.

The Cambists showed the values of coins from dozens of countries and how to calculate the value of bills of lading from foreign ports.

A shipment from a merchant in Germany priced in marks, transshipped in London in Pounds/Shillingsl/Pence and paid in US Dollars in New York.

(Google a Cambist for a fascinating trip down several rabbit holes)

The difference in what was basic mathematical literacy for a clerk vs. today's world where 90% of us can't count change is astonishing.


As for gold, one of the mint directors reports (there was a law passed in 1816 requiring a yearly assay of precious metal coins circulating in the US so this report is in addition to the production report) says that the 15:1 ratio makes in uneconomical to have gold circulating.

 

The smaller size was struck in a close collar, the large size were struck in an open collar. The close collar allowed for the rims to strike up better.

75 Mexican dollars. That figure is shown in Jefferson's account books.