The
United States

United States Mint produces circulating coinage for the United
States to conduct its trade and commerce, as well as controlling the
movement of bullion. It does not produce paper money; that
responsibility belongs to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. The
Mint was created in
Philadelphia

Philadelphia in 1792, and soon joined by other
centers, whose coins were identified by their own mint marks. There
are currently four active coin-producing mints: Philadelphia, Denver,
San Francisco, and West Point.
Contents
1 History
2 Current facilities
2.1 Philadelphia
2.2 Denver
2.3 San Francisco
2.4 West Point
2.5 Fort Knox
3 Functions
4 Mintmarks
5 See also
6 References
7 External links
History[edit]
The First US Branch Mint in California is located at 608–619
Commercial Street, San Francisco, San Francisco County. The branch
opened on April 3, 1854. Today the building houses the Pacific
Heritage Museum.
The Mint was created by Congress with the Coinage Act of 1792, and
originally placed within the Department of State. Per the terms of the
Coinage Act, the first Mint building was in Philadelphia, then the
capital of the United States; it was the first building of the
Republic raised under the Constitution. Today, the Mint's headquarters
(a non-coin-producing facility) are in Washington D.C.. It operates
mint facilities in Philadelphia, Denver, San Francisco, and West
Point, New York and a bullion depository at Fort Knox, Kentucky.
Official Mints (Branches) were once also located in Carson City,
Nevada; Charlotte, North Carolina; Dahlonega, Georgia; New Orleans,
Louisiana; and even in Manila, in the Philippines.[1]
Originally part of the State Department, the Mint was made an
independent agency in 1799.[2] It converted precious metals into
standard coin for anyone's account with no seigniorage charge beyond
the refining costs. Under the Coinage Act of 1873, the Mint became
part of the Department of the Treasury. It was placed under the
auspices of the Treasurer of the
United States

United States in 1981. Legal tender
coins of today are minted solely for the Treasury's account.
The first Director of the
United States

United States Mint was renowned scientist
David Rittenhouse

David Rittenhouse from 1792 to 1795. The position was held most
recently by
Edmund C. Moy until his resignation effective January 9,
2011. (The position is currently vacant, the Mint being run by the
Principal Deputy Director, Rhett Jeppson, who was appointed in January
2015).[3]
Henry Voigt was the first Superintendent and Chief Coiner,
and is credited with some of the first U.S. coin designs. Another
important position at the Mint is that of Chief Engraver, which has
been held by such men as Frank Gasparro, William Barber, Charles E.
Barber, James B. Longacre, and Christian Gobrecht.
The Mint has operated several branch facilities throughout the United
States since the
Philadelphia

Philadelphia Mint opened in 1792, in a building known
as "Ye Olde Mint". With the opening of branch mints came the need for
mint marks, an identifying feature on the coin to show its facility of
origin. The first of these branch mints were the Charlotte, North
Carolina (1838–1861),
Dahlonega, Georgia

Dahlonega, Georgia (1838–1861), and New
Orleans,
Louisiana

Louisiana (1838–1909) branches. Both the Charlotte (C mint
mark) and Dahlonega (D mint mark) Mints were opened to facilitate the
conversion of local gold deposits into coinage, and minted only gold
coins. The Civil War closed both these facilities permanently. The New
Orleans Mint (O mint mark) closed at the beginning of the Civil War
(1861) and did not re-open until the end of Reconstruction in 1879.
During its two stints as a minting facility, it produced both gold and
silver coinage in eleven different denominations, though only ten
denominations were ever minted there at one time (in 1851 silver
three-cent pieces, half dimes, dimes, quarters, half dollars, and gold
dollars, Quarter Eagles, half eagles, eagles, and double eagles).
A new branch facility was opened in Carson City, Nevada, in 1870; it
operated until 1893, with a three-year hiatus from 1886 to 1888. Like
the Charlotte and Dahlonega branches, the
Carson City Mint

Carson City Mint (CC mint
mark) was opened to take advantage of local precious metal deposits,
in this case, a large vein of silver. Though gold coins were also
produced there, no base metal coins were.
In 1911 the Mint had a female acting director, Margaret Kelly, at that
point the highest paid woman on the government's payroll. She stated
that women were paid equally within the bureau.[4]
A branch of the U.S. mint (
Manila

Manila Mint) was established in 1920 in
Manila

Manila in the Philippines, which was then a U.S. colony. To date, the
Manila Mint

Manila Mint is the only U.S. mint established outside the continental
U.S. and was responsible for producing coins for the colony (one,
five, ten, twenty and fifty centavo denominations). This branch was in
production from 1920 to 1922, and then again from 1925 through 1941.
Coins struck by this mint bear either the M mintmark (for Manila) or
none at all, similar to the
Philadelphia

Philadelphia mint at the time.
A branch mint in The Dalles, Oregon, was commissioned in 1864.
Construction was halted in 1870, and the facility never produced any
coins, although the building still stands.
Current facilities[edit]
There are four active coin-producing mints: Philadelphia, Denver, San
Francisco, and West Point.
Philadelphia[edit]
The
Philadelphia

Philadelphia Mint
The Mint's largest facility is the
Philadelphia

Philadelphia Mint. The current
facility at Philadelphia, which opened in 1969, is the fourth
Philadelphia

Philadelphia Mint. The first was built in 1792, when
Philadelphia

Philadelphia was
still the U.S. capital, and began operation in 1793. Until 1980, coins
minted at
Philadelphia

Philadelphia bore no mint mark, with the exceptions of the
Susan B. Anthony dollar

Susan B. Anthony dollar and the wartime Jefferson nickel. In 1980, the
P mint mark was added to all U.S. coinage except the cent. Until 1968,
the
Philadelphia

Philadelphia Mint was responsible for nearly all official proof
coinage.
Philadelphia

Philadelphia is also the site of master die production for
U.S. coinage, and the engraving and design departments of the Mint are
also located there.
Denver[edit]
The
Denver

Denver Mint
The
Denver

Denver branch began life in 1863 as the local assay office, just
five years after gold was discovered in the area. By the turn of the
century, the office was bringing in over $5 million in annual gold and
silver deposits, and in 1906, the Mint opened its new
Denver

Denver branch.
Denver

Denver uses a D mint mark and strikes coinage only for circulation,
although it did strike, along with three other mints, the $10 gold
1984 Los Angeles Olympic Commemorative. It also produces its own
working dies, as well as working dies for the other mints. Although
the
Denver

Denver and Dahlonega mints used the same mint mark D, they were
never in operation at the same time, so this is not a source of
ambiguity.
San Francisco[edit]
A coin press built for the
San Francisco Mint

San Francisco Mint by Morgan & Orr in
1873. It is currently located at the ANA Money Museum in Colorado
Springs.
The San Francisco branch, opened in 1854 to serve the goldfields of
the California
Gold

Gold Rush, uses an S mint mark. It quickly outgrew its
first building and moved into a new facility in 1874. This building,
one of the few that survived the great earthquake and fire of 1906,
served until 1937, when the present facility was opened. It was closed
in 1955, then reopened a decade later during the coin shortage of the
mid-60s. In 1968, it took over most proof-coinage production from
Philadelphia, and since 1975, it has been used solely for proof
coinage, with the exception of the Anthony dollar and a portion of the
mintage of cents in the early 1980s. (These cents are
indistinguishable from those minted at Philadelphia.)
West Point[edit]
The West Point branch is the newest mint facility, gaining official
status as a branch mint in 1988. Its predecessor, the West Point
Bullion Depository, was opened in 1937, and cents were produced there
from 1973 to 1986. Along with these, which were identical to those
produced at Philadelphia, West Point has struck a great deal of
commemorative and proof coinage bearing the W mint mark. In 1996, West
Point produced clad dimes, but for collectors, not for circulation.
The West Point facility is still used for storage of part of the
United States' gold bullion reserves, and West Point is now the United
States' production facility for gold, silver and platinum American
Eagle coins.
Fort Knox[edit]
While not a coin production facility, the U.S. Bullion Depository at
Fort Knox, Kentucky, is another facility of the Mint. Its primary
purpose is for storage of the
United States

United States and other countries' gold
and silver bullion reserves.
Functions[edit]
The Mint manages extensive commercial marketing programs. The product
line includes special coin sets for collectors, national medals,
American Eagle gold, silver and platinum bullion coins, and
commemorative coins marking national events such as the Bicentennial
of the Constitution. The Mint's functions include:
Producing domestic, bullion and foreign coins;
Manufacturing and selling national commemorative medals;
Designing and producing the congressional gold medals;
Designing, producing, and marketing special coinage;
Safeguarding and controlling the movement of bullion;
Disbursing gold and silver for authorized purposes;
Distributing coins from the various mints to
Federal Reserve

Federal Reserve Banks.
Note that the Mint is not responsible for the production of American
paper money; that is the responsibility of the Bureau of Engraving and
Printing.
In 2000, the Mint was responsible for the production of 28 billion
coins. See
United States

United States Mint coin production for annual production
values of each coin.
The
United States

United States Mint Police, a federal law enforcement agency, is
responsible for the protection of Mint facilities, employees and
reserves.
Mintmarks[edit]
Lincoln memorial cent, with the S mintmark of the San Francisco mint.
With the exception of a brief period in 1838 and 1839, all coins
minted at U.S. branch mints prior to 1908 displayed that branch's
mintmark on their reverse. Larger denominations of gold and silver
coins were labeled with the Dahlonega, Charlotte, and New Orleans
mintmarks (D, C, and O, respectively) on the obverse (front) side,
just above the dates, in those two years. Carson City, which served as
a U.S. branch mint from 1870 to 1893, produced coins with a CC
mintmark. The
Manila Mint

Manila Mint (the only overseas U.S. mint, which produced
U.S. Territorial and U.S. Commonwealth coinage) used the M mintmark
from 1920–1941.
Between 1965 and 1967, as the Mint labored to replace the silver
coinage with base metal coins, mintmarks were temporarily dispensed
with (including on the penny and nickel) in order to discourage the
hoarding of coins by numismatists. Mintmarks were moved to the obverse
of the nickel, dime, quarter, and half dollar in 1968, and have
appeared on the obverse of the dollar coin since its re-introduction
in 1971.
Penny: Unlike all other coins, which had their mintmarks on the
reverse until 1964, the Lincoln cent has always had its mintmark on
the obverse below the date to the right of Lincoln's bust since its
1909 introduction.
Nickel: The mintmark was located near the rim of the obverse side,
clockwise from the date from 1968 to 2005, to the right of Thomas
Jefferson's bust. The redesigned obverse of the nickel which appeared
starting in 2006 has its mintmark below the date on the lower right.
Many earlier nickels from 1938 to 1964 are still in circulation, and
their mintmarks can be found on the reverse to the right of
Monticello, with the exception of the 1942–1945 war nickels cited
elsewhere in this article.
Dime: The mintmark is above the date on the obverse side to the right
of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's bust.
Quarter dollar: The mintmark is to the right of George Washington's
bust.
Half dollar: The mintmark is below the center of John F. Kennedy's
bust, above the date.
Eisenhower Dollar

Eisenhower Dollar (1971–1978): The mintmark is below the center of
Dwight D. Eisenhower's bust, above the date.
Susan B. Anthony dollar

Susan B. Anthony dollar (1979–1981, 1999): The mintmark is found to
the left of Susan B. Anthony's bust.
Sacagawea dollar

Sacagawea dollar (2000–2016): For coins minted from 2000 to 2008,
the mintmark is just below the date. For coins minted from 2009 to
2016, the date, mintmark and
E pluribus unum
.svg/440px-Great_Seal_of_the_United_States_(obverse).svg.png)
E pluribus unum were moved to the rim of
the coin.
Presidential dollar (2007–2016): The mintmark and date are found on
the rim of the coin.
Reverse of a wartime nickel, with the P mintmark of the Philadelphia
mint located above Monticello
Due to a shortage of nickel during World War II, the composition of
the five-cent coin was changed to include silver. To mark this change,
nickels minted in
Philadelphia

Philadelphia (which had featured no mintmarks until
then) displayed a P in the field above the dome of Monticello. Nickels
from San Francisco were minted in the same fashion, and
Denver

Denver nickels
reflected the change in 1943. This new mintmark location continued
until 1946, when the nickel returned to its pre-war composition.
The P mintmark, discontinued after the war, reappeared in 1979 on the
Anthony dollar. By 1982, it had appeared on every other regular-issue
coin except the cent, which, with the exception of 2017 Lincoln Cents,
still bears no P mintmark. The circulating cents struck in the 1980s
at San Francisco (except proofs) and West Point also bear no mintmark,
as their facilities were used to supplement Philadelphia's production.
Given the limited numbers produced at each facility, they might have
been hoarded as collectibles.
For 2017, in commemoration of the U.S Mint's 225th Anniversary, the P
mintmark was placed on the obverse of Philadelphia-minted Lincoln
cents for the first time in the coin's 100+ year history. The P
mintmark will not re-appear for 2018 circulation strikes minted in
Philadelphia.[5]
See also[edit]
American Arts Commemorative Series medallion
Bureau of Engraving and Printing
Coins of the
United States

United States dollar
Early
United States

United States commemorative coins
First Strike Coins
Modern
United States

United States commemorative coins
United States

United States commemorative coin
United States

United States Mint coin sets
List of
Federal Reserve

Federal Reserve branches
References[edit]
Notes
^ "The
United States

United States Mint · About Us". Usmint.gov. Retrieved
2011-12-28.
^ "About:
United States

United States Mint". treasury.gov. Retrieved
2013-02-19.
^ About the Mint at usmint.gov (retrieved 20 April 2015).
^ "A
Talk

Talk with Miss Margaret Kelly, Director of the U.S Mint"
^
http://www.coinweek.com/us-mint-news/philadelphia-mint-quietly-releases-2017-p-lincoln-cent/
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help
improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources.
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(Learn how and when to remove this template message)
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