I was just reading on the US Mint's website that between 1973-1986 the West Point Mint struck cents. I never knew about that, I always figured that all cents with no mint mark (except for 1965-1967) were struck at Philadelphia. I always thought that West Point Mint only struck bullion coins and some modern commemorate coins.
Maybe this is a resent admission by the mint and relatively new public information? I never have saved cents and have no older reference materials to check.
If I was West Point, I wouldn't say anything either . Those are some of the worst years for the Lincoln Memorial Cent ....
Chris - I'm not sure what reference the OP is using, but I read this in Bowers's Guidebook of Lincoln Cents. He includes a wealth of information about the branch mints.
Here's my link, I forgot to post it. https://www.usmint.gov/about_the_mint/mint_facilities/?action=WP_facilities
Interesting article. West Point wasn't even a mint until 2 years after it stopped producing 1 cent coins.That seems odd in it's own right. Leave it to Congress to do something unusual and crazy like that.
Let's add more info for as well. They also struck quarters with no mintmark from 1976 through 1979. It has been in the Coin World Almanac since 1990. (It isn't in the 1987 edition) And it is also in the annual mint reports for those years.
The didn't want people hoarding the W mint mark ones which would have defeated the purpose of making them
So the next question is, can we identify any die irregularities that would distinguish W from P? I'm sure future generations would appreciate knowing this.
You could, but if no pieces are identified as ones from West Point Mint you would have nothing to compare with.
After people identified West Point ASEs from the bands securing the Monster boxes, the mint started shipping Philly bands to West Point. They really really don't want us to know. Same people who sold ccins at the ANA show for the special labels. Go figure...
