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I think law prevents them from striking coins for any calendar year that isn't the current one.
I believe the law in question is
31 USC § 5112. The end of section (d)(1) is the only generic reference to putting dates on coins...
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The coins have an inscription of the year of minting or issuance. However, to prevent or alleviate a shortage of a denomination, the Secretary may inscribe coins of the denomination with the year that was last inscribed on coins of the denomination.
That last sentence is there to allow for a situation as happened in 1965, when all those evil coin collectors threatened the integrity of the money supply by plotting to keep one of each date and mintmark of each denomination. This sentence allows them to "freeze" the date if they feel the need to.
More to the point of the question at hand is the first quoted sentence. Note the weasel-word ending: "year of minting
or issuance". This allows the Mint to strike 2013-dated coins any time prior to 2013 actually beginning, so long as the coins aren't actually "issued" until 2013. They could strike 2014-dated coins right now, if they wanted to; so long as they aren't released until 2014, they're legal.
Different countries have different attitudes towards post-dating coins. The laws in France are pretty strict about the date on coins being the date it was actually struck, which is why you can find French euro coins dating to several years prior to the actual introduction of the euro. Here in Australia, on the other hand, they'll start making the 2014 mint and proof sets sometime around August 2013, so they can be ready for sale for Christmas.
Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis
Posted 05/06/2013 11:29 pm
