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 Replies: 18 / Views: 6,337 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2200 Posts |
Anybody know the official reason?
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Rest in Peace
10197 Posts |
?   They were too afraid that the extra weight of so may coins would cause the San Andreas shelf to break off?  It WAS the mid-70's ya know, all those "citizens" of Haight-Ashbury and the vast "smog cloud" of "wacky tabacky"!  It was also the year(1974) that I was released back into society after four years (1970-1974....USMC)  Edited by Crazyb0
07/21/2017 1:26 pm
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2023 Posts |
Some of us live here in SF, you know.  And that doesn't address the suspension in the mid '50s. I'm curious too. |
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Rest in Peace
United States
17900 Posts |
A little levity is fine, but this went a little too far and people took offense. No one likes to be labeled a nut because they live in a certain city.
Comment has been removed-echizento
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
4589 Posts |
As a GUESS, the presses were old and the upgrade too expensive. Proof production is higher tonnage, but lower volume.
-----Burton 50+ year / Life / Emeritus ANA member (joined 12/1/1973) Life member: Numismatics International, CONECA Member: TNA, FtWCC, NETCC, EveryCountry (online) coin club Owned by three cats and a wife of 40+ years (joined 1983) Author: 3rd Edition of the Sample Slabs book, https://www.sampleslabs.info/ |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
997 Posts |
BStrauss3 hit it on the head. The SF Mint doesn't have the capacity to make a difference for circulation coins like Denver and Philly do. These days they handle things like Proofs to take the load off the main coin factories.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4589 Posts |
Well heck - I was right - and darn it, it's too late to buy the lottery.
-----Burton 50+ year / Life / Emeritus ANA member (joined 12/1/1973) Life member: Numismatics International, CONECA Member: TNA, FtWCC, NETCC, EveryCountry (online) coin club Owned by three cats and a wife of 40+ years (joined 1983) Author: 3rd Edition of the Sample Slabs book, https://www.sampleslabs.info/ |
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
17884 Posts |
Philadelphia and Denver were able to supply the countries coinage needs (same reason why San Francisco was shut down in 1955) especially once it took the proof coin production off of Philadelphia's hands. Of course in times of unusually high demand it has returned to striking circulation coins, but with no mintmarks. The S mintmark would just encourage hoarding defeating to purpose of adding the S mint back in the meet demand.
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Moderator
 United States
188052 Posts |
Quote:
The S mintmark would just encourage hoarding defeating to purpose of adding the S mint back in the meet demand. This.  |
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
12817 Posts |
Well... technically the S mint has been making business-strike coins for a few years now...
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1590 Posts |
There were budget issues. In FY55 they shut down SF, as a mint, as well as the Seattle Assay Office. They saved over $400,000 a year by doing this. It doesn't sound like a lot now, but in those days it was a substancial savings. What you have to remember is that the office of Mint director had become a political office, headed by someone with no mint expericance. |
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Rest in Peace
10197 Posts |
jmkendall you used an oxymoron...politics/experience? |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1590 Posts |
The Mint director used to be someone from the Mint. Someone who worked there and knew the inners workings. The Mint Directors report was full of minutea and interesting information.
During the Roosevelt Administration it became a full blown political office and the Mint directors report was much shorter and basically said "we make coins".
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
17884 Posts |
Quote:
Well... technically the S mint has been making business-strike coins for a few years now. But not for circulation. The last S mintmarked coin actually made for circulation was the 1980 S SBA. Edited by Conder101
07/24/2017 09:52 am
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Moderator
United States
188052 Posts |
Quote:Quote:
Well... technically the S mint has been making business-strike coins for a few years now... But not for circulation. The last S mintmarked coin actually made for circulation was the 1980 S SBA. Those crafty NIFC business strike ATB San Francisco minted quarters.  |
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Moderator
Australia
16816 Posts |
I think a main reason why is simply lack of space at the old mint site for a modern minting facility. Look at the mintages for SF compared to the other mints: usually way, way smaller. At normal operating capacity, SF simply couldn't keep up.
The Mint is in the middle of the city and already takes up the entire block of land its sitting on. To make a worthwhile contribution to the national coinage, they'd need to seriously increase the size of the factory floor. The SF mint can't expand unless it goes underground (not sure how practical doing that would be there) or annexes nearby roads and buildings. This is downtown SF we're talking here; that wouldn't be cheap.
And the problem with San Francisco is, they can't buy cheap land on the outskirts of the city to build a new mint. They'd have to go so far out of town, they wouldn't technically be in San Francisco any more. Plus, people would perhaps question the wisdom of building important and expensive new federal government infrastructure so close to an earthquake zone, when putting it further away wouldn't make any real difference to the efficiency of the operation.
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
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Replies: 18 / Views: 6,337 |
Posted 07/21/2017 1:28 pm
