Circulation coins drop in 2017

After posting the second annual decline in a row for circulation coin output in 2017, what’s in store for the United States Mint in 2018?

For all of calendar year 2017, the two Mint production facilities cranked out almost 14.9 billion coins between them.

This figure compares to 16.0 billion in 2016 and 17.0 billion in 2015. You have to look back to 2014 to find a lower production number, when 13.3 billion coins were produced.

January 2018’s monthly output can be intrepreted in two ways.

During the month, Denver and Philadelphia turned out over 1.6 billion coins, beating both the January 2015 and January 2016 monthly output of 1.54 billion and 1.52 billion, respectively.

However, the January 2018 number fell short of the 1.79 billion coins produced in January 2017.

So which path will the rest of 2018 follow? The stronger case or the weaker one?

While there is plenty of time left in the year to ponder this question, we can say that cents put in a strong showing at over 1 billion coins, but still not quite equaling the 2017 monthly number of 1.08 billion.

Nickel output was 151.44 million. Dimes hit 253 million. Quarters were 184.8 million.

In 2018, collector rolls and bags will be filled with 4 million half dollars and 3.5 million Native American dollars.

The record annual circulation coin production was in the year 2000, when roughly 25 billion coins were produced.

In 2009, a half century low was achieved when only 3.5 billion coins were struck. That was the year of the four cent designs. Because of relatively low mintages, many collectors have had a hard time finding them in change.

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