Probably a question that is easily answered...but I don't know the answer so I thought I would ask. The Philadelphia Mint is the original mint...which is why I assume that coins minted there were not marked with a 'P' until recently. All the other mints are branch mints...and the mint marks were put on coins to distinguish coins produced at the branch mints. This is how it was for a long time. Why then, beginning in 1980 did they decided to start putting a 'P' on the coins minted in Philadelphia? Why change it after all that time? There must have been a reason for it. Does anyone know why? In addition to that...why was the Lincoln Cent spared from having a 'P.' To this day Philadelphia minted Lincoln Cents don't have a mint mark. Is this partially due to the fact that from 1974-1986 un-marked cents were also minted at the West Point Mint and by adding a 'P' they would have also had to add a 'W' if they wanted to be completely accurate?
The first "P" mint marks was placed on the Silver "War" nickels were produced by the United States from mid-1942 through 1945. No mint mark was the usual designation for Philadelphia mintage before 1979. The next coin to see the “P” was the 1979 Susan B. Anthony Dollar. Some 1942 nickels were produced without silver content. These will have a small "D" or "S" mint mark to the right of Monticello on the reverse or in the case of Philadelphia minted coins, no mint mark at all. If you find a 1944 Jefferson Nickel without the “P” mint mark it is a Counterfeit. In the mid-1950s Francis LeRoy Henning of Erial, New Jersey minted what is now known as the “Henning” Nickel. He made counterfeit nickels dated 1939, 1944, 1946, 1947 and 1953. The 1944 nickels were quickly spotted since Henning neglected to add the large mintmark of the Philadelphia mint (P). Why no “P” on the Lincoln Cent? In 1980 the “P” was added to the other US coins struck at the Philadelphia Mint. My understanding is they wanted at least one coin to keep the tradition of no mint mark for the Philadelphia Mint and the Lincoln Cent is that coin.
I know the history of the war nickels...probably should have mentioned that in my original post. You are correct, the SBA had a 'P' mark in 1979. But the Jefferson Nickel, Roosevelt Dime, Washington Quarter and Kennedy Half got the 'P' mark in 1980 and have had it ever since. I'm more curious what prompted the addition of the 'P' mark to all US coinage beginning in 1980 (with the exception of the cent) and why the cent was left out.
Without doing proper research, I can only assume that the reason behind putting the P mint mark on everything but cents starting in 1979-80 is gimmickry. It gave something to draw more attention to the sure-to-fail dollar coin and using it on the others and not the cent was part of some deal or compromise starting in 1980.
Could be...I hadn't considered that. I really wonder if the reason it was omitted from the cent was due to the "no mint mark" cents being produced at two different mints.
Cents are still occasionally struck at West Point and San Francisco, albeit without mintmarks. The last time San Francisco had mintmarks on cents from 1968-74 people hoarded them as "rare" even though they were cranked out in the hundreds of millions. The last S mint on a circulating coin was the 1980-S SB Agony dollar.
Likely. Seignorage is nice, but too much being withheld from circulation leads to additional production requirements, and IIRC at that point they were already losing money on Cent production.
Not since 1986 for W and 1983 for S. I have no idea why the decided to start adding the P mintmark to the coins in 1980 but I can think of a few possiblities why they didn't add it to the cent. One would be tradition but I don't find that as being a likely reason until after 1990. A second and much more likely possibility was the fact that West Point and San Francisco were still striking cents but if they could strike them with no mintmark why couldn't they strike them with P mintmarks? And the third reason was that at that time the mintmarks were still being punched into the dies by hand. Adding the mintmark to the cent would have meant another 5,000 to 6,000 dies they would have had to hand punch ech year. (Doing the D mintmarks was bad enough.) After 1990 when all the mintmarks were on the master hub, the only reason left would be tradition.
