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 Replies: 30 / Views: 2,154 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
5318 Posts |
Have you ever wondered how many Statehood Quarters are out there?  Doing some quick calculations, I found that up to Alaska, 32.6 Billion state quarters have been minted since 1999! And that's just for circulation. That's roughly the same amount as all "business strike" quarters minted from 1972-1998!   We could stop minting quarters for a decade and probably be OK on supply. |
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Pillar of the Community
Poland
3201 Posts |
That'd be 3.26 billion per year.
Is it really necessary to mint so many quarters? Weren't the pre-1999 mintages much smaller?
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Valued Member
United States
230 Posts |
I think they minted so many because of the anticipated collectors.
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
5318 Posts |
Fiddler, I bet you're right.  If the 1972-98 period averaged 1.26 Billion quarters/year...there's a 2 Billion/year surplus for collectors. Quote:
Is it really necessary to mint so many quarters? That provides almost 60 extra coins from circulation for every American to collect since the Statehood Quarter program began. --A little more trivia. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2734 Posts |
The Mint anticipated "seigniorage" for the State Quarters. Quote:From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seigniorage The "50 State" series of quarters (25-cent coins) was launched in the U.S. in 1999. The U.S. government planned on a large number of people collecting each new quarter as it rolled out of the U.S. Mint, thus taking the pieces out of circulation[citation needed]. Approximately 147 million people are collecting the coins. Since it costs the Mint less than 10 cents for each 25-cent piece it produces, the government made a profit whenever someone "bought" a coin and chose not to spend it. The U.S. Treasury estimates that it has earned about US$5 billion in seigniorage revenue from the quarters so far. In plain English, they want people to hoard them from circulation.  On my last tour of the Denver Mint, the tour guide asked the group of school children "How many of you collect State Quarters?" and when a lot of hands went up, she said "Good work, keep it up!" and I gave her the 'knowing' grin, to say "I may be the only person on this tour who really understands why you said that!" Actually the number of Quarters minted in the years 2007 and 2008 have dropped rather dramatically when compared to the year 2000 mintages. Year 2000 total, P and D Mints = 6,470,932,000 Year 2007 total, P and D Mints = 2,712,440,000 Highest mintage variety: 2000 (Virginia-P) = 943,000,000 2007 (Wyoming-D) = 320,800,000 2008 (Arizona-D) = 265,000,000 (unless a Hawaii issue tops this) Lowest Mintage variety: 2000 (New Hampshire-D) = 495,976,000 2007 (Wyoming-P) = 243,600,000 2008 (Oklahoma-D) = 194,600,000 (about one-fifth of the amount of the Virginia-P variety!) Given the state of the economy, a lot of the hoarded State Quarters should start re-appearing in circulation, and there goes the 'seigniorage' (oops!) ... |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
5318 Posts |
DNA--great info!  I did not consider the seigniorage aspect. |
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Moderator
 United States
187875 Posts |
Quote:
DNA--great info!  Quote: That provides almost 60 extra coins from circulation for every American to collect since the Statehood Quarter program began. By minting so many, they were not just thinking of collectors, but roll collector as well! Edited by jbuck
11/29/2008 8:08 pm
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Moderator
United States
16677 Posts |
All I know is that is was many many many!
swcoin.ecrater.com
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1179 Posts |
Yeah, a bit excessive in my opinion. Makes them less special :)
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1228 Posts |
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Pillar of the Community
Spain
1361 Posts |
I think most of these coins will end up in collections, if not the albums the cookie jars at home.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
3294 Posts |
Is the mint really making $ off of these, or is it more a loan until people realize they will never really be worth more then a quarter and decide to spend them?
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Pillar of the Community
United States
6326 Posts |
There is a population increase too, in a ten year Statehood Quarter Series run,........more people....more quarters needed ......could be/is part of the factor as well. Quote:
Historical populations
Census/ Pop./ %±
1790 3,929,214 —
1800 5,236,631 33.3%
1810 7,239,881 38.3%
1820 9,638,453 33.1%
1830 12,866,020 33.5%
1840 17,069,453 32.7%
1850 23,191,876 35.9%
1860 31,443,321 35.6%
1870 38,558,371 22.6%
1880 49,371,340 28%
1890 62,979,766 27.6%
1900 76,212,168 21%
1910 92,228,496 21%
1920 106,021,537 15%
1930 123,202,624 16.2%
1940 132,164,569 7.3%
1950 151,325,798 14.5%
1960 179,323,175 18.5%
1970 203,211,926 13.3%
1980 226,545,805 11.5%
1990 248,709,873 9.8%
2000 281,421,906 13.2%
Quote: The United States is an urbanized nation, with 80.8% of its population of 305,186,613[1] residing in cities and suburbs as of mid-year 2005. [2] The mean population center of the United States has consistently shifted westward and southward, with California and Texas currently the most populous states. U.S. population growth is among the highest in developed countries, although its annual rate of 0.88% is below the world average annual rate of 1.16%.  The total fertility rate in the United States estimated for 2008 is 2.1, which is roughly the replacement level for industrialized countries. However, the U.S. Census bureau states that the population is projected to reach 439 million in 2050,[4] which is a 44% increase from 2008 compared to the UN projection of a world population increase of 37% for the same period. Children (people under age 18) made up a quarter of the U.S. population (24.6%), and people over age 65 one-eighth (12.7%) in 2006.[5] So, from the year 2000 to 2005 we have increased our population by 23,761,707. (legal citizens)... (if you went from 1999 to 2008, for the Statehood Quarter Series, I'm sure it would be considerably more obviously.)Look at the "Historical Population" chart. And look at the year 1900 population of the United States. Then look at the year 2000 !.....the difference in " coins needed" is INCREDIBLE !.. ..Then the projected population for 2050 compared to 2005.. ...when does it stop ?......sheeeesh !  When my Dad was born (1937) there were approximately 129 million people here, now today he's 71 years old and there's well over 300 million people !.... DOESN'T THAT JUST MAKE YOU SAY "WOW" !.... The population of the United States has nearly TRIPLED just in my Dads lifetime !>..... MORE PEOPLE = MORE COINS NEEDED REGRETFULLY !And I'm sure the 20 - 40 million "illegal alien" population uses quarters too......so you might as well add that to the 10/20 year population count as well ! Edited by eaglefoot
12/05/2008 09:02 am
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Valued Member
United States
245 Posts |
EAGLEFOOT,
That is a excellent hypothesis !! Thank you.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2734 Posts |
Quote:
eaglefoot: MORE PEOPLE = MORE COINS NEEDED REGRETFULLY ! Now there's one thing I hadn't considered: The more the population increases, the more coin collectors there would be (generally speaking). Quote:
nod2003: "Is the mint really making $ off of these, or is it more a loan until people realize they will never really be worth more then a quarter and decide to spend them?" The latter! That's why I said that a bad economy 'throws a monkey wrench' into their seigniorage plans. And I wouldn't say they'll never be worth more than a Quarter, because I'm projecting that their base metal value will reach their face value sometime in the 2060's. Add that to the population increase by that time, and the impossibility of getting presentable examples from circulation by that time, and I'd say that will be the point in time where the value of BU business strike State Quarters will rise significantly. (Too bad that hardly anyone reading this will live to see that! ) |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
6326 Posts |
DNA.....My chart examples and comments were only really referring to "why they mint so many Billions of these dang quarters" .....regardless of the number of coin collectors. Seperately, the value of these quarters at some future point in time is so true as you put it though !.. .... 
Edited by eaglefoot
12/05/2008 2:34 pm
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Replies: 30 / Views: 2,154 |
Posted 11/29/2008 2:28 pm
