The United States Mint primarily produces circulating coinage In economics, the term currency can refer to a particular currency, for example Pound Sterling, or to the coins and banknotes of a particular currency, which comprise the physical aspects of a nation's money supply. The other part of a nation's money supply consists of money deposited in banks , ownership of which can be transferred by means of for the United States ^ b. English is the de facto language of American government and the sole language spoken at home by 80% of Americans age five and older. Spanish is the second most commonly spoken language to conduct its trade Trade is the voluntary exchange of goods, services, or both. Trade is also called commerce or transaction. A mechanism that allows trade is called a market. The original form of trade was barter, the direct exchange of goods and services. Later one side of the barter were the metals, precious metals , bill, paper money. Modern traders instead and commerce Commerce is a division of trade or production which deals with the exchange of goods and services from producer to final consumer OR commerce is the exchange of goods and services from the point of production to the point of consumption to satisfy human wants. It comprises the trading of something of economic value such as goods, services,. The Mint was created by Congress The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States of America, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C with the Coinage Act of 1792 The Coinage Act or the Mint Act, passed by the United States Congress on April 2, 1792, established the United States Mint and regulated the coinage of the United States. The long title of the legislation is An act establishing a mint, and regulating the Coins of the United States. This act established the dollar as the unit of money in the United, and placed within the Department of State The United States Department of State , is the United States federal executive department responsible for international relations of the United States, equivalent to the foreign ministries of other countries. The Department was created in 1789 and was the first executive department established. Per the terms of the Coinage Act, the first Mint building was located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia is the largest city in Pennsylvania and the sixth-most-populous city in the United States, then the U.S. capital; it was the first building of the Republic raised under the Constitution The Constitution of the United States of America is the supreme law of the United States. It is the foundation and source of the legal authority underlying the existence of the United States of America and the federal government of the United States. It provides the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the. Today, the Mint is headquartered in Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C. , formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, the District, or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States, founded on July 16, 1790. The City of Washington was originally a separate municipality within the Territory of Columbia until an act of Congress in 1871 effectively merged the City and the and operates mint facilities in Philadelphia; Denver, Colorado The City and County of Denver is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Denver is a consolidated city-county, located in the South Platte River Valley on the High Plains, just east of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. The Denver downtown district is located immediately east of the confluence of Cherry Creek; San Francisco, California The City and County of San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in California and the 12th most populous city in the United States, with a 2008 estimated population of 808,977. The only consolidated city-county in California, it encompasses a land area of 46.7 square miles on the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, making it the; West Point, New York West Point is a federal military reservation located North of the Village of Highland Falls in Orange County, New York, United States. The population was 7,138 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Poughkeepsie–Newburgh–Middletown, NY Metropolitan Statistical Area as well as the larger New York–Newark–Bridgeport, NY-NJ-CT-PA Combined; and a bullion depository at Fort Knox, Kentucky Fort Knox is a United States Army post in Kentucky south of Louisville and north of Elizabethtown. The 109,000-acre base covers parts of Bullitt, Hardin, and Meade counties, with Hardin county receiving the largest benefit, economically. It currently holds the U.S. Army Armor Center, the U.S. Army Armor School, and is used by both the Army and the. [1]

The Mint's first director was renowned scientist David Rittenhouse David Rittenhouse was a renowned American astronomer, inventor, clockmaker, mathematician, surveyor, scientific instrument craftsman, and public official. Rittenhouse was a member of the American Philosophical Society and the first director of the United States Mint. The position is currently held by Edmund C. Moy Edmund C. Moy is an American government official. He is currently serving as the 38th Director of the United States Mint, where he oversees the world’s largest manufacture of coins, medals and numismatic products. Henry Voigt was the first Superintendent and Chief Coiner, and is credited with some of the first U.S. coin designs. Another important position at the Mint is that of Chief Engraver, which has been held by such men as Frank Gasparro Frank Gasparro was the tenth Chief Engraver of the United States Mint, holding this position from February 23, 1965 to January 16, 1981. Before that, he was Assistant Engraver, William Barber, Charles E. Barber, James B. Longacre James Barton Longacre , an American engraver, was the fourth Chief Engraver of the United States Mint from 1844 until his death. He succeeded Christian Gobrecht in the position as Chief Engraver upon Gobrecht's death. Longacre is probably best known for designing the Indian Head Cent, but was also responsible for the designs of the Shield Nickel,, Christian Gobrecht Christian Gobrecht was third Chief Engraver of the United States Mint from 1835 until his death in 1844. He was responsible for the famous "Seated Liberty" designs, which were in turn the direct inspiration for the design of the Trade Dollar and Anthony C. Paquet, among others.

The Mint was made an independent agency in 1799, and under the Coinage Act of 1873 The Fourth Coinage Act was enacted by the United States Congress in 1873 and embraced the gold standard and de-monetized silver. Western mining interests and others who wanted silver in circulation years later labeled this measure the "Crime of '73". Gold became the only metallic standard in the United States, hence putting the United, became part of the Department of the Treasury The Department of the Treasury is an executive department and the treasury of the United States federal government. It was established by an Act of Congress in 1789 to manage government revenue. The Department is administered by the Secretary of the Treasury, who is a member of the Cabinet. It was placed under the auspices of the Treasurer of the United States The Treasurer of the United States is an official in the United States Department of the Treasury that was originally charged with the receipt and custody of government funds, though many of these functions have been taken over by different bureaus of the Department of the Treasury. Responsibility for oversight of the Bureau of Engraving and in 1981.

History

The Mint has operated several branch facilities The original and main Mint of the United States Mint, has been located in Philadelphia , since 1793. Its current facility, Philadelphia's fourth, opened in 1969. U.S. branch mints have been located at: throughout the United States since the Philadelphia Mint The Philadelphia Mint was created from the need to establish a national identity and the needs of commerce in the United States. This led the Founding Fathers of the United States to make an establishment of a continental national mint a main priority after the ratification of the Constitution of the United States opened in 1792 in a building named "Ye Olde Mint". With the opening of branch mints came the need for mint marks Mint marks were first developed to locate a problem. If a coin was underweight, or overweight, the mint mark would immediately tell where the coin was minted, and the problem could be located and fixed. Another problem which could occur would be a dishonest mint official debasing the coin, or putting less precious metal in the coin than specified, an identifying feature on the coin to show its facility of origin. The first of these branch mints were the Charlotte Charlotte is the largest city in the state of North Carolina and the seat of Mecklenburg County. Charlotte's population was estimated to be 687,456 in 2008, making it the 18th largest city in the United States. The Charlotte metropolitan area had a population in 2009 of 1,745,524. The Charlotte metropolitan area is part of a wider thirteen-county, North Carolina Spanish colonial forces were the first Europeans to make a permanent settlement in the area, when the Juan Pardo-led Expedition built Fort San Juan in 1567. This was sited at Joara, a Mississippian culture regional chiefdom near present-day Morganton in the western interior. This was 20 years before the English established their first colony at (1838–1861), Dahlonega Dahlonega is a city in Lumpkin County, Georgia, United States, and is its county seat. As of the 2000 census, it had a total population of 3,638, Georgia Georgia is bordered on the south by Florida; on the east by the Atlantic Ocean and South Carolina; on the west by Alabama and by Florida in the south; and on the north by Tennessee and North Carolina. The northern part of the state is in the Blue Ridge Mountains, a mountain range in the vast Appalachian Mountains system. The central piedmont (1838–1861), and New Orleans New Orleans (pronounced /nuː ˈɔrliənz/ or /nuː ɔrˈliːnz/, locally [nuː ˈɔrlənz] or [ˈnɔrlənz]; French: La Nouvelle-Orléans [la nuvɛlɔʁleɑ̃] ) is a major United States port and the largest city and metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana, Louisiana Some Louisiana urban environments have a multicultural, multilingual heritage, being so strongly influenced by an admixture of 18th century French, Spanish and African cultures that they are considered to be somewhat exceptional in the U.S. Before the American influx and statehood at the beginning of the 19th century, the territory of current (1838–1909) branches. Both the Charlotte The Charlotte Mint was a branch of the United States Mint that came into existence on March 3, 1835 during the Carolina Gold Rush. The first gold mine in the United States was established in North Carolina at the Reed Gold Mine. The United States Congress approved an Act to establish several branch mints; the act stated, "...one branch [to be (C mint mark) and Dahlonega The Dahlonega Mint was a branch of the United States Mint in Dahlonega, Georgia. Coins produced at the Dahlonega Mint bear the "D" mintmark. That mintmark is used today by the Denver Mint, which opened many years after the Dahlonega Mint closed. All coins from the Dahlonega Mint are gold and bear the dates 1838-1861 (D mint mark) Mints were opened to facilitate the conversion of local gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from Latin: aurum, "shining dawn", hence adjective, aureate) and an atomic number of 79. It has been a highly sought-after precious metal for coinage, jewelry, and other arts since the beginning of recorded history. The metal occurs as nuggets or grains in rocks, in veins and in alluvial deposits into coinage, and minted only gold coins. The Civil War Union blockade – Eastern – Western – Lower Seaboard – Trans-Mississippi – Pacific Coast closed both these facilities permanently. The New Orleans Mint The New Orleans Mint operated in New Orleans, Louisiana, as a branch mint of the United States Mint from 1838 to 1861 and from 1879 to 1909. During its years of operation, it produced over 427 million gold and silver coins of nearly every American denomination, with a total face value of over US$307 million. It was closed during most of the (O mint mark) closed at the beginning of the Civil War (1861) and did not re-open until the end of Reconstruction In the history of the United States, the Reconstruction era has two definitions, the first in reference to the entire nation in the period 1865-1877 following the Civil War, and the second to the transformation of the Southern United States from 1863 to 1877, with the reconstruction of state and society in the former Confederacy and the addition in 1879. During its two stints as a minting facility, it produced both gold and silver coinage in eleven different denominations, though only ten denominations were ever minted there at one time (in 1851 silver three-cent pieces The United States three cent piece was a unit of currency equaling 3/100th of a United States dollar. The mint produced two different three-cent coins: the three-cent silver and the three-cent nickel. Its purchasing power in 1851 would be equivalent to $0.77 today, half dimes The half dime, or half disme, was a silver coin, valued at five cents, formerly minted in the United States, dimes The dime is a coin worth ten cents or one tenth of a United States dollar. The dime is the smallest in diameter and the thinnest of all U.S. coins currently minted for circulation. The 32nd President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, is featured on the obverse of the current design, while a torch, oak branch, and olive branch covering the motto E pluribus, quarters A quarter dollar, commonly shortened to quarter, is a coin worth ¼ of a United States dollar, or 25 cents. The quarter has been produced since 1796, half dollars Half dollar coins of the United States have been produced nearly every year since the inception of the United States Mint in 1794. Sometimes referred to as the fifty-cent piece, the only U.S. coin that has been minted more consistently is the cent, and gold dollars Dollar coins have been minted in the United States in gold, silver, and base metal versions. The term silver dollar is often used for any large white metal coin issued by the United States with a face value of one dollar; although purists insist that a dollar is not silver unless it contains some of that metal. Silver dollars, the first dollar, Quarter Eagles The quarter eagle was a coin issued by the United States with a denomination of two hundred and fifty cents, or two dollars and fifty cents. It was given its name in the Coinage Act of 1792, as a derivation from the US ten-dollar eagle coin. Its purchasing power in 1800 would be equivalent to $31.28 today, half eagles The Half Eagle is a United States coin that was produced for circulation from 1795 to 1929, and in commemorative and bullion coins since the 1980's. Composed almost entirely of gold, it has a face value of five dollars. Its production was authorized by The Act of April 2, 1792, and it was the first gold coin minted by the United States. Its 1800, eagles The eagle is a base-unit of denomination issued only for gold coinage by the United States Mint. It has been obsolete as a circulating denomination since 1933. The eagle was the largest of the four main decimal base-units of denomination used for circulating coinage in the United States prior to 1933, the year when gold was withdrawn from, and double eagles A Double Eagle is a gold coin of the United States with a denomination of $20. . The coins are made from a 90% gold (0.900 fine = 21.6 kt) and 10% copper alloy).

A new branch facility was opened in Carson City The Consolidated Municipality of Carson City is the capital of the State of Nevada. The population was 52,457 at the 2000 census, Nevada Nevada is the seventh-largest state in area, and geographically covers the Mojave Desert in the south to the Great Basin in the north. It is the most arid state in the Union. Approximately 86% of the state's land is owned by the U.S federal government under various jurisdictions both civilian and military. As of 2008, there were about 2.6 million in 1870; it operated until 1893, with a four-year hiatus from 1885 to 1889. Like the Charlotte and Dahlonega branches, the Carson City Mint The Carson City Mint was a branch of the United States Mint in Carson City, Nevada. Built at the peak of the silver boom, 50 issues of silver coins and 57 issues of gold coins minted here between 1870 and 1893 bore the "CC" mint mark. The mint was established in Carson City to facilitate minting of silver coins from silver in the (CC mint mark) was opened to take advantage of local precious metal deposits, in this case, a large vein of silver. Though gold coins were also produced there, no base metal coins were.

A branch of the U.S. mint (Manila Mint) was established in 1920 in Manila in the Philippines, which was then a U.S. colony. To date, the Manila Mint is the only US mint established outside of the Continental U.S. and was responsible for producing coins for the colony (one, five, ten, twenty and fifty centavo denominations). This branch was in production from 1920 to 1922, and then again from 1925 through 1941 (until the outbreak of World War II). Coins struck by this mint bear either the M mintmark (for Manila) or none at all, similar to the Philadelphia mint at the time.

Current facilities

Philadelphia

The Mint's largest facility is the Philadelphia Mint, one of four active coin-producing mints. The current facility at Philadelphia, which opened in 1969, is the fourth Philadelphia Mint. The first was built in 1792, when Philadelphia was still the U.S. capital, and began operation in 1793. Until 1980, coins minted at Philadelphia bore no mint mark, with the exceptions of the Susan B. Anthony dollar and the wartime Jefferson nickel. In 1980, the P mint mark was added to all U.S. coinage except the cent. Until 1968, the Philadelphia Mint was responsible for nearly all official proof coinage. Philadelphia is also the site of master die production for U.S. coinage, and the engraving and design departments of the Mint are also located there.

Denver

The Denver branch began life in 1863 as the local assay office, just five years after gold was discovered in the area. By the turn of the century, the office was bringing in over $5 million in annual gold and silver deposits, and in 1906, the Mint opened its new Denver branch. Denver uses a D mint mark and strikes coinage only for circulation, although it did strike along with three other mints the $10 gold 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Commemorative. It also produces its own working dies, as well as working dies for the other Mints.

San Francisco

The San Francisco branch, opened in 1854 to serve the goldfields of the California Gold Rush, uses an S mint mark. It quickly outgrew its first building and moved into a new facility in 1874. This building, one of the few that survived the great earthquake of 1906, served until 1937, when the present facility was opened. It was closed in 1955, then reopened a decade later during the coin shortage of the mid-60s. In 1968, it took over most proof-coinage production from Philadelphia, and since 1975, it has been used solely for proof coinage, with the exception of the Anthony dollar and a portion of the mintage of cents in the early 1980s. (These cents are indistinguishable from those minted at Philadelphia.)

West Point

The West Point branch is the newest branch mint. Its predecessor, the West Point Bullion Depository, was opened in 1937, and cents were produced there from 1973 to 1986. The West Point Mint gained official status as a branch mint on March 31, 1988. Along with the cents already mentioned, which were identical to those produced at Philadelphia, West Point has struck a great deal of commemorative and proof coinage bearing the W mint mark. In 1996, West Point produced clad dimes, but for collectors, not for circulation. The West Point facility is still used for storage of part of the United States' gold bullion reserves, and West Point is now the United States' only production facility for gold, silver and platinum American Eagle coins.

Fort Knox

While not a coin production facility, the U.S. Bullion Depository at Fort Knox, Kentucky is another facility of the Mint. Its primary purpose is for storage of the United States and other countries' gold and silver bullion reserves.

Functions

The Mint manages extensive commercial marketing programs. The product line includes special coin sets for collectors, national medals, American Eagle gold, silver and platinum bullion coins, and commemorative coins marking national events such as the Bicentennial of the Constitution. The Mint's functions include:

• Producing domestic, bullion and foreign coins;
• Manufacturing and selling national commemorative medals;
• Designing and producing the congressional gold medals;
• Designing, producing, and marketing special coinage;
• Safeguarding and controlling the movement of bullion;
• Disbursing gold and silver for authorized purposes;
• Distributing coins from the various mints to Federal Reserve Banks.

Note that the Mint is not responsible for the production of paper money; that is the responsibility of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.

In 2000, the Mint was responsible for the production of 28 billion coins. See United States Mint coin production for annual production values of each coin.

Responsible for protection of Mint facilities, employees and reserves is the United States Mint Police, a federal law enforcement agency.

Mintmarks

With the exception of a brief period in 1838 and 1839, all coins minted at U.S. branch mints prior to 1909 displayed that branch's mintmark on their reverse. Larger denominations of gold and silver coins were labeled with the Dahlonega, Charlotte, and New Orleans mintmarks (D, C, and O, respectively) on the obverse (just above the dates) in those two years. Carson City, which served as a U.S. branch mint from 1870 to 1893, produced coins with a CC mintmark.

Between 1965 and 1967, as the Mint labored to replace the silver coinage with base metal coins, mintmarks were temporarily dispensed with (including on the penny and nickel) in order to discourage the hoarding of coins by numismatists. Mintmarks were moved to the obverse of the nickel, dime, quarter, and half dollar in 1968, and have appeared on the obverse of the dollar coin since its re-introduction in 1971.

• Cent: Unlike all other coins, which had their mintmarks on the reverse until 1964, the Lincoln cent has always had its mintmark on the obverse below the date to the right of Lincoln's bust since its 1909 introduction.

• Nickel: The mintmark was located near the rim of the obverse side, clockwise from the date from 1968 to 2005, to the right of Thomas Jefferson's bust. The redesigned obverse of the nickel which appeared starting in 2006 has its mintmark below the date on the lower right. Many earlier nickels from 1938 to 1964 are still in circulation, and their mintmarks can be found on the reverse to the right of Monticello, with the exception of the 1942-1945 war nickels cited elsewhere in this article.

• Dime: The mintmark is above the date on the obverse side to the right of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's bust.

• Quarter dollar: The mintmark is to the right of George Washington's bust.

• Half dollar: The mintmark is below the center of John F. Kennedy's bust, above the date.

• Eisenhower Dollar (1971-1978): The mintmark is below the center of Dwight D. Eisenhower's bust, above the date.

• Susan B. Anthony dollar (1979-1981, 1999): The mintmark is found to the right of Susan B. Anthony's bust.

• Sacagawea dollar (2000-2008): The mintmark is just below the date. In 2009 the date, mintmark and E pluribus unum were moved to the rim of the coin.

• Presidential dollar, first issued in 2007: The mintmark and date are found on the rim of the coin.

Due to a shortage of nickel during World War II, the composition of the five-cent coin was changed to include silver. To mark this change, nickels minted in Philadelphia (which had featured no mintmarks until then) displayed a P in the field above the dome of Monticello. Nickels from San Francisco were minted in the same fashion, and Denver nickels reflected the change in 1943. This new mintmark location continued until 1946, when the nickel returned to its pre-war composition.

The P mintmark, discontinued after the war, reappeared in 1979 on the Anthony dollar. By 1982, it had appeared on every other regular-issue coin except the cent, which still bears no P mintmark. The circulating cents struck in the 1980s at San Francisco (except proofs) and West Point also bear no mintmark, as their facilities were used to supplement Philadelphia's production. Given the limited numbers produced at each facility, they might have been hoarded as collectibles.

See also

• United States commemorative coin
• Early United States commemorative coins
• Modern United States commemorative coins
• Bureau of Engraving and Printing

External links

• Media related to United States Mint at Wikimedia Commons
• U.S. Mint website

Categories: United States Mint | 1792 establishments

See Also:

• Taxation In the United States
• United States Dollar: Encyclopedia
• United States Senate: Encyclopedia
• United States Congress: Encyclopedia
• United States Postal Service: Encyclopedia

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