Mint: November 2008

US Mint coin production figures have been updated for November 2008:
(http://usmint.gov/about_the_mint/coin_production/index.cfm?action=production_figures&allCoinsYear=2008#starthere)

Jan.-Nov. 2008 totals:
Cents: 5.4084 B
Nickels: 625.44 M
Dimes: 1.0155 B
Quarters: 2.4124 B
Half Dollars: 3.4 M
Dollars: 464.48 M (including 3.64 Sacagaweas)
Total Coins: 9.93326 B

Subtracting out the Jan-Oct totals gives the following November monthlies:
Cents: 488.8 M
Nickels: 66.0 M
Dimes: 87.0 M
Quarters: 281.6 M
Half Dollars: none
Dollars: none
Total Coins: 923.4 M
Average Coin Value: 9.45 cents

The mintages of the Martin Van Buren presidential dollar are the lowest for the series so far.

Year-over-Year (YoY) trends compared to Nov. 2007:
Cents: up 86.6%
Nickels: down 20.1%
Dimes: up 6.1%
Quarters: up 14.0%
Total Coins: up 36.4%

The last two months toward the end of the year are typically a slowdown period for the Mint, a chance for it to perform maintainence and retool for the coming year. As such, mintages tend to decrease dramatically at this time. This causes weird things to happen with the YoYs, so take those with a grain of salt. This November's YoYs looks unusually strong, especially when you compare it to last November's slowdown.

The fact that a recession was retroactively declared since last December is evident in the mintage figures. The Mint has yet to outproduce its numbers from August 2007.