2008: Year in Review

When it comes to circulating coins, I will always remember 2008 as the Mint's fallow year.

When I was a child, the new year didn't really sink in for me until I found a new coin bearing the new unfamiliar date. This is still true for me as an adult today. So every year, I watch for the new coins to visit my pockets. Usually I see new coins in February or March, but this year I had to wait until May before I spotted my first 2008 in the wild, a penny. (Oddly that first one was a Denver, not a Philly, which was even more unusual here in DC.) The last of the common four denominations, the dime, didn't show up until September. I never recall it being this hard to find new coinage in circulation, and that speaks volumes about the severity of the current recession.

The Mint's total quantity of new coins this year was 10.14 billion, the lowest since 1973. Every denomination saw mintage cutbacks this year, though it isn't clear why yet. Was there an adequate surplus of coinage leftover from 2007 to meet commercial demand this year? Is the hard economy driving people to cash in their change jars? Is tight credit driving some consumers away from credit cards and back to cash? Is the green movement getting us to reuse our existing coinage? Or are we the USA slowly going towards electronic money?

Dollar coins fared the best in 2008, with 489 million coins produced. That's 51% of the 2007 dollars, and the best second-year showing for any small dollar program. Previously, the Sacagawea dollar mintage fell to 10.4% from 2000 to 2001 and the Susan Anthony dollar mintage fell to 11.8% from 1979 to 1980. Compared to previous programs, the presidential dollar program is having a stupendous sophomore year, whether due to collector demand or bona fide business usage. I've not written the President dollars off as a failure.

The 50 state quarter program came to a close in this its final year. 2.54 million new quarters were made, making 2008 the third lowest year for state quarters after 2003 and 2004. Quarter mintages are down 9% from 2007, and are only 39% compared to the peak of the state quarter program in 2000. That said, collector demand for state quarters meant that 2008 mintages are still higher than any pre-1999 quarter mintage. I'll be curious to see what happens to mintages for the territories quarters in '09 and the National Parks quarters starting in 2010. If collectors follow through on their threats to ignore these series, then I expect quarter mintages will return to Nineties levels.

Next we have the diminutive but potent dime. One billion dimes were made in 2008, the lowest annual total since 1979 (705 million). This is down 50% from 2007, and down 71% from the peak in 2000. Unlike for nickels and pennies, the demand for dimes has been trending upward for the last twenty years.

The nickel mintages this year were the lowest of the new Jefferson forward design (the "Franki nickel"), with 641 million minted. This is the lowest since 1975 (584 million). Mintages of nickels are down 47% from 2007, and down 73% since 2000. I expect the circulating population of 2008 nickels to thin out quickly, and within a few years it might be easier to spot a 1964 nickel in the wild than a 2008 nickel.

2008 is the swan song for the venerated Memorial Lincoln cents, first introduced in 1959. The cent's reverse gets a makeover series in 2009 celebrating the 200th birthday of Honest Abe. 2008 was also the 26th year of production for the zinc-core cent, which replaced solid bronze in 1982. The cent mintages for 2008 were 5.42 billion, the lowest since 1971 (5.36 billion). Both the Philly and Denver 2008 cents have the lowest mintages for all zinc memorial cents, and will be future key dates for the series. Cent collectors in the 2040s will be chasing 2008 cents the way we chase after 1955s now.

Let's not forget the half dollar. They're still making halves. For almost all of us, the half dollar is the rarest of modern US coins to find in the wild, where they haven't circulated in decades. 2001 was the last true year for half dollar mintages for circulation. The Mint has been making trace amounts of halves since then, exclusively for Mint sets and numismatists, and 2008 was no exception. Only 3.4 million halves were produced in 2008, the lowest year since 1970. (In 1970, the Mint did not strike halves for circulation, either, but as an exception rather than the rule.)

So, what does this mean for 2009? With a collectible series running for the cent, quarter, and dollar, expect collector demand to prop up the mintages for those denominations. The real bellwether of change in coinage demand will be seen in the mintages of nickels and dimes. My prediction is for nickel and dime production to stay level with 2008 mintages, and for the series coins to have a mintage increase of 5-10% over 2008. With unemployment still rising, many retailers on a bankruptcy death watch, a credit market still paralyzed with fear of risk, foreclosures and unsold housing inventories still climbing, and consumer spending hitting lows unseen since the Sixties, I do not expect the US economy to improve over 2009. We will be lucky not to slide downward even further from our position at the end of 2008. Regardless of plans by Democrats for economic relief, the fundamentals of a shrinking economy haven't changed. I do not expect recovery to begin until the fundamentals have turned around.

Mint: December 2008

December 2008 mintages have been released by the Mint, so the final annual totals are as follows:

1 cent: 5.4192 B
5 cents: 640.56 M
10 cents: 1.0505 B
25 cents: 2.5388 B
50 cents: 3.4 M
1 dollar: 489.12 M **
TOTAL: 10.14158 B

Subtracting out the Jan-Nov 2008 totals yields the data for December:

1 cent: 10.8 M
5 cents: 15.12 M
10 cents: 35.0 M
25 cents: 126.4 M
50 cents: none
1 dollar: 21.0 M **
TOTAL: 208.32 Million coins
Average value for coin: $0.273

As I expected, the Mint slowed to a crawl at the end of the year. They do this every December to retool and prepare for the new year. This is the fewest coins, both per denomination and in total, for any month of 2008.

** The Mint differentiates their dollar mintage between the Sacagawea dollars, reported as "golden dollars", and the Presidential dollars. No presidential dollars were added for December, so the 21 million dollars reported here are all Sacagaweas. I strongly suspect these are the new Native American dollars authorized by Congress. If so, these coins are dated 2009. I expect that they will be removed from the 2008 mintage table and added to the 2009 table within the next few months. (The Mint did something similar with dollar coins in the '07-'08 transition.) If the Mint changes the dollar mintages, I will post an update here accordingly.

BEP: December 2008

BEP data for December 2008 is here:
http://www.bep.treas.gov/section.cfm/2/431/640

$1: 166.4 M
$5: 32.0 M
$10: 64.0 M
$20: 51.2 M
$50: 48.0 M
$100: 132.48 M
Average value per bill: $35.70

Lowest $5 bills since September 2007.

First $50 bills made since March 2007, 21 months ago.

Average value per bill still high due to low production of $10s and $20s, and higher production of $50s and $100s.

BEP: November 2008

BEP data for November 2008 is here:
http://www.bep.treas.gov/section.cfm/2/431/640

$1: 153.6 M
$5: 83.2 M
$10: 51.2 M
$100: 166.4 M
Average value per bill: $39.00

Fewest quantity of total bills printed since December 2007.

Since May 2008, first month with no $20 bills, and fewest $5 bills.

Lowest $10 print run since August 2007.

In the last six years, since records began in October 2002, this month has the fewest $1 bills printed in a month.

Most $100 bills printed in a month since October 2007.

Because of the high $100 bill production and low $1 bill production, this month has the highest average bill value in at least six years.