Canadian Cent Mintages?

I don't want to beat a dead horse, but I'm afraid those posted mintage numbers are very dubious. Specifically, I'm talking about 2006 and 2007 mintages (and maybe other dates too).

I know, I know, they come from the Charlton "bible". All I have to go by is the RCM annual reports. I suspect that's all anybody can know without inside mint information.

One more time (if anybody is listening, or cares), according to the RCM reports...

2007 production of zinc cents: 9,625,000
2007 production of steel cents: 938,270,000

How anyone can then conclude (and publish!)

2007 dated zinc cents: 9,625,000
2007 dated steel cents: 938,270,000

is beyone me.

We know that in the RCM fiscal year 2007, there were 9,625,000 zinc cents produced. We also know that in the RCM fiscal year 2007, there were 101,475,000 cents produced bearing the date 2006.

These surely must overlap somewhat. In fact, almost no 2007-dated zinc cents have ever been found in circulation. Further, a mint spokesperson told a CCF member here that the entire 2007-dated run was zinc. That may be incorrect too, but there is not enough information to conclude the mintage splits of date and composition. The reports do not discuss this. They merely present date mintages and composition mintages, separately. And (last time I checked) you can't solve

x + y + z + w = 2 billion

by only knowing x + y and x + z.

I understand when people tune out this detail on the mintages, but *my* solution is to list just what I know about mintages: mainly the total for the year, and indicate in a note something like that the zinc mintage is known to be less than 9 million.

What bothers me is when the catalogs publish their incorrect inferences as fact, with no source.

Try the reports on the RCM website. The 2011 report is going to come out at the end of this month.