Supply and demand are like yin and yang, dark and light, peanut butter and jelly, polar opposites but can't survive without each other. So I think your both right, (this is if I'm right because this is what I was taught in school) Thanks, Jacob
Most people under the age of 40 did not get a good enough education in school to be able to trust any of it. But in this case I think there is a greater than usual chance you are right. However, in this case I was thinking of the cent. There is almost no demand but plenty of supply.
Actually there is huge demand for the cent because they all make a one way trip to the change jar so they always have to make more. If the demand was low the fed wouldn't be ordering them and the mint wouldn't be making them and the supply would be low. It is demand that drives the mintages when it comes to coins. The mint holds a stockpile to fill orders from the Fed and then strikes coins to replenish the stockpile. If the Fed doesn't need more coins they don't order, the stockpile doesn't go down and the mint stops coining. That was why the 2009 coins had such low mintages. The crash of 2008 brought a lot of coins back to the banks and Federal reserve and they stopped ordering from the Mint.
So, original poster, your guess was correct. Different mintages are due to changes in something called "aggregate demand", that is, demand for use in commerce as a whole. There is a "floor", the number they mint for quasi-numismatic purposes (see golden dollars and Kennedy halves), and there is a "ceiling", the practical production limit at full-bore production. If you get to visit the Philadelphia Mint, you'll no doubt see how much cent production dominates the striking areas. I've never been inside the Denver Mint, but I'm led to believe the "tour" is far different from the one in Philly.
You are correct. Sac Dollars were a percent of the Presidential dollars by law each year from 2007 to completion of the series. .
Why depend on market forces when everyone knows legislators know better, right? After all, that's what my bosses all tell themselves on a daily basis, and anyone who dares disagree becomes persona non grata.
If market forces were truly at work, both the Presidential Golden Dollar and the Sac Dollar would have never been minted. The Dollar coin would have ended in 1999 with the Suzan B. Dollar.
Because of the The Great Recession that began in December 2007, people were gathering up all their spare change they had saved. They took it to banks for paper money. Banks were overwhelmed with coins being returned in 2008. So the demand was low for change, thus the mint cut the production of dimes and nickels by 80%~ in 2009.
Or....Could it be that people were not spending much, therefore businesses required less small change, and the Fed didn't ship as much, therefore requiring less from the mint to replenish their inventory. Just saying.
