Cent production falls, but Birth design still scarcest

Mintage figures have come my way and I can figure how the race to be the scarcest 2009 Lincoln cent is shaping up.

Production of the Professional Life Lincoln cent, the third of four designs this year, dropped off from the total achieved by the Formative Years design, but not by enough to threaten the position of the Philadelphia Birth cent as the lowest mintage of the 2009 Lincoln cents so.

Philadelphia cranked out 316 million of the Professional Life design. This was low enough to slide it into second scarcest status behind the 284.4 million Birth cents struck by Philadelphia.

Denver’s 336 million output of the Professional Life cents puts this coin third on the scarcity list.

Fourth place is currently held by the 350.4 million Denver Birth cents.

Fifth place is held by the 363.6 million Denver Formative Years cents.

Sixth place is held by the 376 million Philadelphia Formative Years cents. This, obviously is the most common of the commemorative designs so far.

Two more entries in the scarcity sweepstakes will be added when we know the output numbers for the fourth cent design of the year, the Presidency.

Combined output for the Birth design was 634.8 million. This rose to 739.6 million for the Formative Years and then fell to 652 million for the Professional Life design.

With production of the third design falling from the level of output for the second design, perhaps one of the fourth designs will have a low enough mintage to displace the P-mint Birth cent as the lowest mintage of the year.

For that news, though, we have to wait until production concludes for the year.