Where was the coin produced? For most pieces you are apt to encounter, the answer is that it is a product of one of the United States mints, but other coins in private collections and museums may have been stamped out in the Tower Mint in London, the Leningrad Mint in Russia, in John Higley's workshop in Granby, Connecticut, in one of over a dozen mints in Mexico, or perhaps by some unrecorded coiner in ancient Greece.

Among United States coins, the general rule of thumb years ago was that a coin without a mint letter was produced at Philadelphia, whereas pieces struck at any one of a half dozen other locations bore distinguishing mintmarks. Among the exceptions, remembered today only as numismatic footnotes, are some 1837-dated large cents said to have been struck at the New Orleans Mint to test the presses prior to the implementation of regular coinage in 1838, and the 1925 Fort Vancouver commemorative half dollars, struck at the San Francisco Mint, but for some unexplained reason lacking the S mintmark. It is believed that some of the 3,000 1870 gold dollars struck at the San Francisco Mint lacked an S mintmark; thus, they would appear to be Philadelphia coins. Wartime silver-content Jefferson nickels minted from 1942 through 1945 bore the P mint letter for Philadelphia, an unprecedented use. In recent times the P mintmark has appeared on many coins, but back in 1942 it was a decided novelty.

Each mint was apt to have its own peculiarities. Morgan silver dollars made at the Carson City Mint during the 1880s have a boldness of strike and a frostiness which is quite distinctive. Show me an 1885 silver dollar, face up, with the mintmark not evident, and chances are that I will be able to tell you if it is a Carson City piece, for the Philadelphia, New Orleans, and San Francisco varieties of the same year look ever so slightly different. Show me an 1861 gold dollar, face up, again with no otherwise obvious clue as to the mint of origin, and if it is irregularly struck with the U of UNITED nearly obliterated, I can identify it as a product of the Dahlonega Mint, even though the mintmark is unseen on the reverse.

It is interesting to contemplate the point of origin of coins. Large cents struck in Philadelphia in 1797 were there during the great yellow fever epidemic. At one point the ravages of the disease were so dreadful that the Mint closed its doors, and dies were transferred to a bank vault. An 1870-CC Liberty Seated dollar was on hand in rough and ready Nevada during the glory days of the Comstock Lode. Trade dollars minted there a few years later (beginning in 1873) were shipped of to China - what stories such coins could tell! Double eagles minted at New Orleans during the 1850s were produced right in the middle of a city which was thronging with prosperity and riverboat commerce.