February production down

This article was originally printed in Numismatic News.
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The pace of coin production slowed to 523.140 million pieces in February compared to the January output of 764.73 million coins.

Leading the contraction was the Presidential dollar, which went from 72.66 million coins in January to zero in February.

The Presidential dollars struck in January were all of the Andrew Johnson design. With nothing added in February, the final mintage of the Johnson dollar is 37.1 million coins from Denver and 35.56 million from Philadelphia.

Half dollar production also fell to zero, but the small January output of 3.45 coins are sold to collectors in bags and rolls and little additional output will likely be needed in 2011.

Another major deceleration occurred with nickels. Production of this denomination dropped by two-thirds from 93.12 million coins to 32.16 million pieces. The February Denver nickel output was just 2.88 million coins, though its two-month total is 80.16 million.

Quarter production might be picking up a bit. It’s two-month total for 2011 is now 103,400,000 pieces. If this pace keeps up all year, over 600 million quarters would be the result, compared to 347 million in 2010.

However, the final mintage totals for the Gettysburg design, the first of the 2011 America the Beautiful series, shows mintages still falling. Denver struck 30.8 million of these and Philadelphia 30.4 million. These totals are lower than any of the five 2010 designs. The lowest mintage in 2010 was 33.6 million of the Yellowstone quarter struck by Philadelphia.

Output of Native American dollars picked up speed in February. Some 21.28 million coins were struck compared to just 6.3 million in January.