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Posted 12/16/2017 10:48 pm
Quote:
I've never understood the rationale of the Philadelphia Mint not putting a mint mark on pennies.
I've never understood the rationale of the Philadelphia Mint not putting a mint mark on pennies.
When the mint was established it was the one and only mint, there was no need for a mintmark. In 1837 when the New Orleans, Charlotte, and Dahlonega mints were established they were NOT mints in their own right, the official title of each was "Branch Mint of the United States at New Orleans" etc. Mintmarks were applied at the branch mints to differentiate them from the "Mother mint". Philadelphia was still the only "official" mint so it did not need a mark to identify it. (The branch mints did not become mints in their right until 1873. After that their official titles became "United States Mint at New Orleans" etc. )
This remained the case, in general, until 1980 when they added the P mint to all the coins except the cents. The reason they didn't add them to the cent at that time was probably related to the fact that at that time the marks were still being added to the dies by hand. Adding the P to the other dies was probably annoying but not a big problem. But the number of dies needed for cents is relatively huge, there would be THOUSANDS of cent dies to hand stamp each year. Once they added the mintmark to the master hub there was no longer any reason not to add the P to the cent other than tradition.
