Coin Mintages

Banks order coin from the federal reserve banks. The federal reserve meets these requirements from stock and order new coins if the stock is insufficient. Coins get lost and destroyed all the time and the economy is almost always growing and requiring more coins. Many coins, especially cents, are simply thrown away because of their very limited value. Without new coin there would almost immediately be coin shortages.

It may seem that way but consider that millions of coins are lost each year. These are destroyed in fires, lost in floods, and recycled in scrap automobiles. Huge numbers of coins enter the garbage stream because they are sucked up in vacuums or thrown away. Plus any growth in the economy requires more coins. Every vending machine has to be stocked with coins for change and then accumulate more coins before they are periodically emptied. New stores requires safes and cash registers full of coins. Even new houses will have coins in them where there were none before. The mint makes about 3% of the total number of larger coins each year. If they didn't mint the coins for a year then there would be a 3% shortage. Cents have been made in huge numbers but if they quit making these you'd hardly see them after a very short time. Most cents are of pretty recent mintage in circulation.

Much of the demand for coins is caused by the tendency of people to save more coins while their finances are good. Where most people won't normally allow their change jar to get very heavy before they are tapping it for its cash value during bad times, they'll let it get much heavier when they don't need the money. This causes larger spikes while the economy is improving.

While there are lots of 1965 quarters in circulation, there are many millions of these which no longer exist. Nearly half of these are gone now. And remember this one date virtually replaced all the silver coins that had been in circulation.

People could be encouraged to keep fewer coins and businesses to empty their vending machines more often. It's certainly possible to operate the economy with fewer coins but it's easier to just keep up with the demand. The mint also makes a profit on the dimes and quarters so why not satisfy the demand?