Denver And Philadelphia Coin Distribution

I believe the general rule is that the Mississippi river is the dividing line. If that is true, then any place along the river should have equal access. The Twin Cities immediately come to mind.

That being said, I expect members who have access to both will be able to confirm any theory.

I was hoping somebody on the Internet somewhere would have published a heatmap, showing typical percentages of P and D coins in circulation. But alas, if someone has created such a map, my Google-fu could not find it.

The Feds would order coins from "whichever mint is cheapest", and that would likely change from year to year, depending on the costings for the various subcontractors that do the actual shipping. Fed branches wouldn't be contractually locked in to receive coins from specific mints. Though of course locations that are much closer to one mint or the other are always likely to be universally serviced by that mint; if that weren't the cheaper option, then the whole concept of "branch mints" would need to be questioned.

The other factor is, of course, human movement. Pennies might be single-use tokens (not entirely unlike bus tickets, used once then thrown away) in the eyes of many people, but most higher denominations actually still circulate, and people on the move take their coins with them. Places where lots of people travel to or from, I would expect a lot more rapid admixture of coins. Washington DC, Los Angeles, NYC, Florida, other places that get lots of tourists and/or through traffic.

That's my hypothesis, anyway. Again, I would like to see a heatmap to confirm.

Looks as if my next US vacation will have to be one of those lovely Mississippi cruises on a sternwheeler!

I am relatively near Philadelphia, and search only nickels. I would say that all decades from 1938-1979 are mixed quite well for P vs. D. The 1980s are relatively mixed, but skew somewhat towards P. The 1990s are very lopsided towards P, maybe 80/20 to 90/10. From 2000-2005, the D mint marks get scarce enough that when I have one, I'm like, "Oh, a D." After 2006, I will automatically set aside a D that is superficially in good condition because I know I have very few in my BU rolls.

The other day, I got a batch of gleaming 2022-D, and I was quite pleased. I treated them like nickels from the 1940s! =)

In theory the mints still ship to the FED banks but in practice the coins get into circulation almost solely through contractors (counting houses) that ship them to local banks. To my knowledge the FED branches do almost nothing with coin either. There may be exceptions.

Think of it this way; when you make money by the trillions what do you want with a dirty disgusting penny that began evaporating the day it is made? Their customers want billions of dollars and not a lot of pennies.