The 3 Different Mints

You forgot the C for Charlotte (also 1838-1861, I believe, and also only gold).

nice if they minted San Francisco coins for circulation again

Only two things. How many were saved intentionally or accidently (the supply) compared to how many collectors want (the demand). In the old days the supply was determined principally by mintage and low mintage coins were scarce while high mintage were common but this changed in 1931 when millions and millions of coin collectors got started. The Great Depression spawned millions of coin collectors and these folks saved new coin and especially low mintage pennies.

Then in 1965 everybody quit saving any new coins at all but it doesn't matter because there are so few collectors for base metal moderns. Now days it tends to be the highest mintage coins that are poorly saved while people do save the low mintage ones. It's really quite complex with coins like the bicentennial quarter being set aside by the millions while the DE quarter can be scarce in choice condition but common in typical condition.

Mint marks are a very large determinant of the number that get saved because they identify mintages and because different sections of the country save different coins. The western US tends to save more clad than the east, for instance. This appears to be caused by the fact that they don't hate the coins as much and, probably, because Denver quality is far superior to Philly. People just don't want to save the junk in a brand new roll of Philly mintage.

DE quarter? Clad? Definition please, and thanks!

Denver superior to Philly? What are the reasons?
Westerners love coins more?
Very interesting info!

DE quarter = The first of the State Quarters issued in 1999 honoring the first state Delaware.

Clad = The three layer composition of the currenct US dime, quarter, half and dollar. The coins are made of an outer layer of either 75% copper 25% nickel (dime, quarter, half, Ike and SBA dollars) or a copper, manganese, zinc, and nickel alloy (Sac, NA, and President dollars) In each case they are bonded or "clad" to a pure copper core layer.

There are also some silver clad coins made up of two outer layers of 80% silver 20% copper bonded to a center layer of 79% copper 21% silver. The overall composition being 40% silver 60% copper. These are referred to as 40% silver clad coins.

For these and many more definitions, we have a huge glossary here: http://www.coincommunity.com/dictionary/

Have a look at it, you may find it interesting!

Good luck, and -



to the CCF!

Certainly - I know that I got my 2009(P) Presidency cent in early December 2009, something like three weeks after release, after my uncle went to Moscow with that coin in his pocket. Surely many other such cents would have ended up in San Francisco instead (New York to San Francisco is probably a much more common travel destination than New York to Moscow, especially in winter).

EDIT: The only reason we even know about any wrong-mintmark coins is pretty much when no such coins of the other mint were made in that year (this is the case with the 1922 no D, and kind of the case with the assorted no S proofs because there were no proofs of that date made in Philadelphia).
The other possibility could be them turning up in official mint sets and rolls, I suppose - that's how we know about the mints of Godless dollars; but certainly there were no official San Francisco mint circulation cent rolls (that's kind of the point).