The pace of striking coins for circulation at the United States Mint picked up in July after a sluggish output in June, but the monthly production level remained well below 1 billion for the eleventh month in a row, following eight consecutive months above that level.
In July, the U.S. Mint manufactured 235.2 million coins, spread across cents, quarters, and half dollars, up 39.8% from the prior month but down 79.4% from July 2023. For another month this year, the Mint reported no production of either nickels or dimes.
Here’s how the month compares to others in the past year:
July 2023 to July 2024 Circulating Coin Production
| Month | Mintages | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| July 2024 | 235.20 M | 11 |
| June 2024 | 168.22 M | 12 |
| May 2024 | 396.08 M | 8 |
| April 2024 | 368.20 M | 10 |
| March 2024 | 332.70 M | 9 |
| February 2024 | 644.86 M | 4 |
| January 2024 | 755.98 M | 3 |
| December 2023 | 151.80 M | 13 |
| November 2023 | 604.409 M | 5 |
| October 2023 | 501.911 M | 7 |
| September 2023 | 546.03 M | 6 |
| August 2023 | 1,030.38 M | 2 |
| July 2023 | 1,139.30 M | 1 |
The primary mission of the U.S. Mint is to manufacture coins in response to public demand. The Mint produces, sells, and subsequently delivers circulating coins to Federal Reserve Banks and their coin terminals to support their services to commercial banks and other financial institutions.
Even though it costs the Mint 3.07 cents to make and distribute each 1-cent coin, the Federal Reserve always orders more of them than any other denomination. In July, the Mint struck 82 million Lincoln cents, accounting for 34.9% of all circulating-quality coins produced for the month. A month earlier, in June and in a very rare occurrence, the Mint reported that no cents were produced.
Back to July, and for a third month this year, the U.S. Mint reported no production of either nickels or dimes. The production of quarters increased by 3.3% from the previous month.
Mintages of Native American Dollars and Kennedy Halves
The U.S. Mint also strikes other coins in circulating quality, namely half dollars and dollars. Native American $1 coins are no longer ordered by the Federal Reserve, but they are still made in circulating quality for coin collectors. The same was true for Kennedy half dollars until recently — years 2021, 2022, and 2023.
Usually, in January, the U.S. Mint produces both denominations to the expected amounts needed for the entire year. Nonetheless, this has not been the case for Kennedy halves in each of the three prior years, as the Federal Reserve unexpectedly ordered millions more for circulation — roughly 12 million, 7 million, and 18 million in fiscal years 2021, 2022, and 2023.
It has not been disclosed whether any 2024 Kennedy half dollars have been produced for general circulation, although it is likely. Half dollar production figures changed in January (+5.7 million), March (+ 1.9 million), April (+2.6 million), May (+3.2 million), June (+4.9 million), and July (+3.2 million), with the latest results showing 9.9 million coins from Philadelphia and 11.6 million from Denver, totaling 21.5 million. These figures compare to production runs in 2023 totaling 27.8 million from Denver and 30.2 million from Philadelphia, amounting to 58 million coins — the highest since 1983, when it reached 66.6 million.
Unlike the usual practice, the mintages of the Native American dollar were adjusted in February instead of being completed in January. This change was prompted by the absence of reported minting activity for the dollar in Denver throughout January. Since February, the total dollar mintage has remained at 2.24 million coins, with 1.12 million each from Denver and Philadelphia, matching the 2023 total.
On Jan. 29, the U.S. Mint started selling Denver- and Philadelphia-minted rolls, bags, and boxes of 2024 Native American dollars. On April 23, the bureau started offering rolls and bags of circulating 2024 Kennedy halves.
This next table shows 2024 circulating coin mintages by production facility, denomination, and design.
U.S. Mint Circulating Coin Production in July 2024
| Denver | Philadelphia | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lincoln Cent | 40,000,000 | 42,000,000 | 82,000,000 |
| Jefferson Nickel | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Roosevelt Dime | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Quarters | 73,200,000 | 76,800,000 | 150,000,000 |
| Kennedy Half-Dollar | 3,200,000 | 0 | 3,200,000 |
| Native American $1 Coin | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Total | 116,400,000 | 118,800,000 | 235,200,000 |
In the overall production totals for July, the Denver Mint produced 116.4 million coins, while the Philadelphia Mint produced 118.8 million coins, resulting in the combined total of 235.2 million coins.
YTD Totals
Year-to-date, the Denver Mint has struck 1,501,200,000 coins, and the Philadelphia Mint has made 1,400,040,000 coins, bringing the total to 2,901,240,000 coins — the weakest seventh-month start since CoinNews began reporting on monthly production figures in 2011. This is 66.1% fewer than the 8,547,140,000 coins manufactured during the same period in 2023.
If the current production pace were to continue through December, the annual mintage for 2024 would reach 4.97 billion coins. In comparison, the U.S. Mint manufactured over 11.38 billion coins for circulation in 2023, marking the lowest output since 2012.
This next table lists coin production totals by denomination and by U.S. Mint facility:
YTD 2024 Circulating Coin Production by Denomination
| 1 ¢ | 5 ¢ | 10 ¢ | 25 ¢ | 50 ¢ | N.A. $1 | Total: | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Denver | 780.4M | 32.88M | 138M | 537.2M | 11.6M | 1.12M | 1501.2M |
| Philadelphia | 734.8M | 36.72M | 92.5M | 525M | 9.9M | 1.12M | 1400M |
| Total | 1515.2M | 69.6M | 230.5M | 1062.2M | 21.5M | 2.24M | 2901.2M |
Lowest Mintages for 2024 Dr. Mary Edwards Walker Quarter
In addition to the 2024 Native American dollar with its one-year-only design, the U.S. Mint has also released the first three of five issues for 2024 from their four-year program of American Women Quarters™. These three coins represent the 11th through 13th releases in the series, each featuring a unique design.
The Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray quarter, the first quarter design for this year, began circulating on Jan. 2. On Feb. 1, the Mint made rolls and bags of the quarter available for purchase by the public. First reported in March figures and unchanged since, a total of 354.2 million Murray quarters were minted, with 185.8 million coming from Denver and 168.4 million from Philadelphia.
Patsy Takemoto Mink quarters entered circulation on March 25, and on March 28, the U.S. Mint began selling rolls and bags of them to the public. The latest figures show Patsy Takemoto Mink quarter mintages at 187.2 million from Denver and 210.2 million from Philadelphia, for a combined 397.4 million.
For the first time, the U.S. Mint published mintages for the Dr. Mary Edwards Walker quarter. Walker quarters entered circulation on June 3, and on June 17, the U.S. Mint started selling rolls and bags of them to the public. The latest figures show Dr. Mary Edwards quarter mintages at 159.4 million from Denver and 141.2 million from Philadelphia, for a combined 300.6 million. This marks the lowest mintage total for any quarter in the series to date. In terms of production by facility across the series, both the 2024-P and the 2024-D also rank as the scarcest.
Of the total production year to date, 10 million quarters have not yet been officially assigned a design by the U.S. Mint. This represents a small portion of the many more Celia Cruz quarters yet to be minted. Celia Cruz quarters entered circulation on Aug. 5, with U.S. Mint rolls and bags of them offered to the public on Aug. 7.
2024 Circulating Coin Production by Design
This last table offers a breakdown of this year’s mintages that have been reported by coin design, including the first three quarters:
| Denver | Philadelphia | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lincoln Cent | 780,400,000 | 734,800,000 | 1,515,200,000 |
| Jefferson Nickel | 32,880,000 | 36,720,000 | 69,600,000 |
| Roosevelt Dime | 138,000,000 | 92,500,000 | 230,500,000 |
| Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray Quarter | 185,800,000 | 168,400,000 | 354,200,000 |
| Patsy Takemoto Mink Quarter | 187,200,000 | 210,200,000 | 397,400,000 |
| Dr. Mary Edwards Walker Quarter | 159,400,000 | 141,200,000 | 300,600,000 |
| Celia Cruz Quarter | – | – | – |
| Zitkala-Ša Quarter (expected release on Oct. 21) | – | – | – |
| Kennedy Half-Dollar | 11,600,000 | 9,900,000 | 21,500,000 |
| Native American $1 Coin | 1,120,000 | 1,120,000 | 2,240,000 |
| Total | 1,496,400,000 | 1,394,840,000 | 2,891,240,000 |
And yet there’s an alleged currency shortage for the first time since the great depression.
Antonio,
Does “currency shortage” mean a shortage of bills, coins, or both?
Note: The Mint is already $20 million in the red from having made those 1.5 billion Lincoln cents. Thanks, Federal Reserve, for the big “loss leader” order!
Complain to your congressman. They are the only ones that can eliminate the cent.
Christo,
That’s always an option, but I think they have bigger fish to fry these days.
Understatement.
Touche’.
Christo, you certainly hit upon the main culprit. I wonder though if Treasury couldn’t make a decision like it did with the Prez dollars, to just stop circulating them. And to possibly only provide them in bulk palettes with a surcharge and the purchaser having to arrange pick-up at the Mint’s loading dock.
Maybe they could do that but the Golden Dollars were rarely used in the first place so few people really noticed. If the Lincoln Cent is essentially pulled from circulation in the manner you suggest the political name-blaming begins.
The handfull of countries that have successfully eliminated cent type coins don’t have the kind of political divide our country lives in now.
Blame the Mint and the Federal reserve if it makes you feel good but it is your own representitive in Congress that’s to blame.
Remember, Republicans control the House of Representitives and Lincoln was a Republican.
The soonest this topic even has a chance to be mentioned again is January 2025.
The nation would do well to take heed in what Lincoln stood for.
Christo, I agree with you that it is Congress that needs to fix.
And one of my points is that Republicans in Congress will resist removing the Lincoln Cent from circulation.
Christo and Major D,
With Alaska as the nation’s biggest Zinc producer and Montana known as the Copper State, it’s possible that economic factors weigh in at least as heavily as political considerations when it comes to the Mint cranking out cents by the billions.
Antonio, what’s your source for such a currency shortage?
Is this low production an indicator of a recession? I remember how mintage totals plummeted in between 2008 and stayed relatively low through 2010 (not to mention 2009’s totals!) and how they dropped noticeably in 1991 and 2003 during those recessions too as people cashed in their coin hoards. I wonder if that’s what’s going on now despite things being seemingly okay or if it’s pandemic overproduction now being smoothed out or has the percentage of cash transactions gone down a lot faster than expected? We got several boxes of 2024 cents early in the year so my sense of… Read more »
Vachon,
I have no idea of how to answer some of the bigger questions you posed. However, since the Mint makes only what the Federal Reserve asks for I would think the circulating coin production figures are based entirely on the Fed’s distribution plans.
Vachon, perhaps you’re on to something here. Coin production was halted early in 2009 for nickels and dimes because banks were ordering less due to folks cashing in coins at banks (US Mint Halts 2009 Nickels and Dimes Production | CoinNews). But from what I can see the cent production was still over 2 billion for the combined eight P&D Lincoln bicentennial designs. And the quarter had the twelve P&D territory designs- so there was a lot happening with the number of circulating coins being made– and I’m sure a lot of collector hoarding going on, too. But I’m not… Read more »
You’re right about 1992 (I made a mistake in the year…wasn’t ’91) and 2003. The drops were not as drastic as 2009’s drop (which was about 35% of 2008’s production), merely noticeable blips.
Yet while cent production was still seemingly high in 2009, it was still less than 50% of 2008’s production and only 32% of 2007’s production and quarter production for 2009 fell to about 21% of 2008’s totals.
Vachon,
“…has the percentage of cash transactions gone down a lot faster than expected?”
On re-reading your comment this section stood out to me. Could be a big factor.
Job creation was revised downward by over 800,000 today. The Fed will likely reduce the interest it charges by 50 points in September, at least that’s the speculation. Is a recession on the horizon…who knows when they can’t even accurately count the number of jobs added or lost per month. We probably won’t know until after the election cycle is over. I’m not sure you can use the declining demand for coinage as an indicator of economic stress. A lot of folks these day use plastic or direct pay to make purchases. Personally, I’ve only handled a few coins all… Read more »
Craig,
“What exactly do folks do with coins these days that makes them look like they were dredged from a sewage plant.”
I’ve been seeing more of that lately when I comb through change looking for anything promising or worthwhile. It’s as though people have such disdain for coinage they feel a need to dirty and/or deface it to the best of their ability.
What really sticks out in these figures for me is the really low production of nickels so far this year: 33 million D and 37 million P. For comparison, 2023 had 735 million D and 693 million P. I wonder what’s going on here, as it can’t be the metal value. Right now, the metal in the nickel is worth 109.54% ($0.0547714) of the face value vs. 272.55% ($0.0272556) for the cent. Source: Coinflation.com. I’ve seen the metal value for the nickel as high as 8 cents just a few years ago so 5.4 cents is low for this coin.
Major D,
Now those are some exceptionally intriguing and simultaneously puzzling facts in that they seem to put forth the appearance of being “self-contradictory”. Go figure.
Oddly enough, I was just going to comment that I’ve noticed a great lack of 5c coins over the last year or so. I’ve been personally responsible for “de-circulating” about 100 of them (every one I find) this year. Don’t count the jars of them I have stashed away from the past. I wonder if the negative seigniorage for nickels vs positive for dimes and quarters has any bearing on the low production this year? The Mint could just be trying to control costs the simple way, within their Congressional constraints. After all, you can make most change to the… Read more »
Sam-I-am,
Except, it is the Federal Reserve that determines how many circulating coins of each denomination are minted throughout the year by how many it orders from the Mint.
Sam-I-am, I’ve done the same with the 2024 nickels that I found (so far only around a dozen). I should have pointed out that the metal value of $0.0272556 is for a copper cent. The zinc cent metal content is 72.81% of face value ($0.00728). As for producing more cents in lieu of nickels it does make fiscal sense (in a backwards way). According to the Mint (FY23 Report) seigniorage per $1 issued is minus $2.08 for the cent and minus $1.31 for the nickel. In other words, it costs 3.08 cents to make every cent but there’s one cent… Read more »
Man, I really screwed that one up! Late night commenting = errors. Something I will refrain from doing again. To make five 1c is a net loss of 10.4 cents; To make one 5c is a net loss of 6.5 cents. Definitely more cost effective to make nickels vs 1c. Sorry folks!
Major D,
This is one of those “I’m glad I’m not the only one who has done that” occasions. I’ve written long compositions complete with examples and calculations only to discover when I was done – hopefully before I hit “Post Comment” – that everything I had shared as fact and/or common sense was based on an entirely erroneous premise and whatever conclusion I had come to was a lot of nonsense.
For me, this is another Dud. Even tho I do NOT collect quarters of any kind, for those that do, I wouldn’t like this one either. If you’re going to produce coins designed after people or whatever, design coins that aren’t fugly and way too busy! They seem to be very busy planchettes, at least to my likings. The America the Beautiful and National Parks quarters had a lot on their planchettes but they weren’t too busy and they weren’t fugly. That’s just my take. I think the Mint is producing way too many different coins in the same denomination… Read more »
AKBob, have you held any AWQ proofs or silver proofs in your hand to look at them?
A nice-looking coin I think.
AKBob,
I’ve now read your comment a few times and I still have to ask, do you like these? 😉
Kaiser,
I’m going to say he doesn’t like them. That’s my read on his comments. I agree with AKBob on his assessment of too many quarter series. I tired of them after the ATB series. Plus, they take too damn many years to complete!
Craig,
I started out with a lot of enthuiasm for the various Quarter Series but it has begun to wear thin as there seems to be no end to them. Unless I am mistaken, the next projected Series will be a long one again, unlike the rather short AWQ Series. I find it disheartening to know there’s every chance that at my advanced age I might not be around to see the next Series to its conclusion. Can’t we please just have plain old Quarters again?
Kaiser,
You’re not alone with your concerns for completing a long run quarter series. I’m in great shape, but I never assume anything concerning health or longevity. It matters not whether you’re old(er) or young. I think the quarters have become something akin to an advertisement billboard, they’re always changing it with another ad I’m totally indifferent to. I’d like a quarter using a variant of the eagle on the reverse of the walking liberty half dollar. I guess I’m a sucker for the classics.
Craig,
I had a heart attack 29 years ago at age 48, and now at 77 I am living both grateful for the bonus years but also always slightly edgy at the possibility of a re-occurance. My grandfathers made it to 39 and 74 and my father to 67, so the fact I now hold the family record makes me feel both lucky and nervous simultaneously. This is why I believe so firmly in what coins represent, that there are always two sides to everything.
Kaiser, lol! 😉 I think I’ll keep it a secret and you all can guess if I like them!
Major D, I will concede that your photo of a proof looks much, much nicer than the one in this article! 😉
AKBob,
Keeping that a secret is like trying to hide the Eiffel Tower in Paris; nice try! 😉
AKBob, I was a critic of many AWQ coin designs until I got a hold of the proofs and silver proofs. The circulation varieties look awful, no disagreement there. But even the designs that I don’t like look much better in proof. I’d say that goes for the AI dollars as well. Just something about a proof to bring out the best in a design.
Major D,
It wasn’t until you brought up this difference in appearance by type of strike that I took another look at my coins in those three versions and I think you’ve hit upon something there. Very good observation!
Kaiser, I have to give you that! There’s a pretty big difference between them. I’m glad you pointed that out and provided the photo. Today on EBay, I posted this on a previous article, there was a 2021 D MS70 PCGS Morgan Dollar, First Strike Flag Label in an auction that ended today. Opening bid was $1050.00. It ended with no bids. The Seller has relisted it. They were going for $1500.00+ just a month or two ago! I also received an email today from Provident and they have raw/ungraded 2023 & 2024 Morgan & Peace dollars for $72.80. I’m… Read more »