December coin production drops
Monthly coin production at the U.S. Mint ended on a weak note.
Just 560.64 million coins were struck. This was roughly half the number of coins struck in November.
For the year, the Denver and Philadelphia coining facilities cranked out just over $13.1 billion coins.
Perhaps it was accounting shifts that put an additional 700,000 coins in the Denver half dollar column and subtracted 700,000 from its golden dollar production total.
In any case, note that Denver struck 6.1 million half dollars in 2018 and 1.4 million of the gold dollar, which is also known as the Native American dollar.
Cents as usual led the output totals with 325 million coins struck at the two mints.
This was followed by 110.8 million quarters, 73 million dimes, and 51.84 million nickels.
For the full year, dimes beat quarter production, coming in at 2.2 billion compared to 1.9 billion.
There were 1.3 billion nickels struck.
For half dollars and golden dollars, totals were much lower at 10.9 million and 2.8 million, respectively.
However, these coins are not released into circulation. They are sold by the Mint directly to collectors in rolls and bags.
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