Mintage Of 1960 Small Date Vs. Large Date Cents?

If I'm not mistaken, the mint did not separate the counts between large and small date cents.

The small date coins were the first struck and issued in 1960. The changeover came early in the year, because the two date sizes were well known by Spring. Articles appeared in late March or early April 1960 describing the date varieties. The large date working dies would have to have been used a few weeks earlier for the coins to reach commerce. Note: the Denver mint had a walk-up-window where bags of freshly minted coins could be purchased by the public.

(Side story: As a kid, I remember waddling down the sidewalk trying to lift bags of coins that my dad purchased for use in the family store. Somehow, his hand on the bag took just enough weight that I could do it.)

Because of the walk-up-window, Denver coins very well could have reached circulation within a day of being minted. I do not know if Philadelphia had a similar window.

There are clearly many more 1960-D small date cents than 1960 Philadelphia small date cents. Here's one explanation I have heard over the years.

At least one of the lines of speculation is that the Philadelphia mint made and shipped dies to Denver early in preparation for the new year's coinage. The theory is that Philadelphia gave Denver at least enough dies to get that mint through several months of production. The theory continues that the master die cracked/shattered/was damaged while preparing early dies for Philadelphia's use. The theory supposes that Denver used its dies to the maximum die life and struck many coins. The theory is that Philadelphia had fewer 1960 dies when the master die needed to be replaced, used those dies to the full, and then suspended cent production until new dies were available.

If this theory is correct, then the monthly mintage figures should reflect that sequence. The monthly figures were released back then to the ANA, for publication after the fact in The Numismatist. Those figures show Philadelphia cent mintages of 2,075,000 in January, none in February, 36,440,000 in March, and 14,235,000 in April. In contrast, Denver minted 73,450,000 in January, 95,340,000 in February, 111,480,000 in March, and 133,685,000 in April. If we assume that all of the coins produced through March were small dates, Philadelphia could have minted over 38 million and Denver could have minted over 280 million of them. On the other hand, if we assume that the changeover occurred earlier, Philadelphia's mintage may have been as small as the January-February total of 2,075,000, all of which were minted in January. That would make them relatively as scarce as the 1950-D Jefferson nickels (2,630,000). I don't see that. The 1960 Philadelphia small date cents seem more common.

It seems more reasonable to see a midrange for each mint, with at least some of the March production included. If we arbitrarily take all of January, all of February, and half of March, Philadelphia could be around 20 million and Denver around 225 million. Just to my eyes, that seems somewhere in the ballpark.

EDIT: Here are the monthly 1960 P and D cent mintage figures published in The Numismatist.

Very interesting.

Maybe I am misunderstanding the numbers that fortcollins put up, the 2 mil was just the first month. If I understand it correctly, there were a total of 586 mil minted. Granted that is roughly a 3rd of D's minted but still a lot. Correct me if I am wrong, as I often am.

Right. If the number is 2M, people should be bonkers for them. As fortcollins says, if Philly was still minting small dates in March, then maybe the number is 20M-38M. That still seems like a modest mintage to me, but I can see where that would make it much easier to obtain 1960 (P) small date cents.

The 2M number is the one that I had seen elsewhere, which is what initially started my questions about the small date variety.

Another part of the mystery is 1960-D DDO-001. It's a small date hubbed over a large date. That seems counterintuitive, given some of the theories about the reason for the design change. The one thing it conclusively proves is that both hubs existed at the same time, even if only briefly.

IMHO, it is worth pulling the small dates out of the wild. Circulated 1960-D small date cent rolls will bring something over face value. I've only seen a few rolls of circulated 1960 Philadelphia small date cents over the years, and they definitely drew interest. What people really want are the BU coins. BU Denver coins are available in quantity. BU Philadelphia coins are tougher to find than any mintage figure would suggest.

After doing some more digging and seeing what is available in BU condition, I would say no, short of it being a high end specimen. I agree, there is definitely less of the P's than D's, by what margin though, who knows. There seems to be much conjecture and would explain why there are no solid numbers. I think the 2 mil is a low number, seeing how available they are, just my opinion though. I think I will revert back to what my betters told me in an earlier comment I made. The example I have offered up is yours if you would like it though.