Mint >> 2010 Year in Review

After 2009's dramatic modern mintage lows, 2010 bounces back to 2008 levels. Keep in mind 2008 levels were far below 2007 to begin with. The Mint made 6.373 billion coins in 2010, comparable to the number struck in 1968. This sits between the 10.1 billion and 3.6 billion struck in 2008 and 2009, respectively.

There were 4 billion of the new shield cents struck, significantly below the 5.4 billion struck in 2008, but far more than the 2.35 billion struck in 2009. (2009 cents were also spread among four commemorative designs, making them far rarer.) I don't think the inaugural shield cent is going to see any major collector value for a long time, unless mintage levels in the near future return to the 15-billion cent levels seen circa Y2K.

For nickels, the story is similar. The 490.6 million 2010 nickels is less than the 640.6 million 2008 nickels, but far more than the 86.6 million 2009 nickels. The 2009 nickels are likely to become a key date for Franki nickel collectors in the decades to come. The low nickel mintages of 2008 and 2010 will always hide in the shadow of the forever infamous 2009 nickel.

Dimes were the only denomination to break the 2008 mintage level, but only by a small excess. Dime production is still a third of its 2005 levels, but 1.1 billion is nothing to get excited about. Like with nickels, the 2010 dime will go unnoticed while its 2009 brother will get all the attention.

Quarters were the big surprise of the year. Hoping to duplicate the success of the State Quarter series, Congress began the National Parks quarters in 2010, a series that will continue through at least through 2021. I was expecting that this series would see high interest and demand, seeing as how popular the state quarters were. Instead, quarters in 2010 (and in 2009) maintained a mintage level for the denomination not seen since the 1930s! Both 2009 and 2010 quarters of any variety will be highly sought after by collectors for the indefinite future, and will become increasingly rare in circulation. Get 'em while you can!

Half dollars, the forgotten denomination, continued to be forgotten. The half dollar's mintage levels have been on life support since 2002. The 3.5 million struck in 2010 is comparable to the approx. 4 million struck annually during 2006-2009. Halves continue to be the rarest of all current US coins, and halves dated 2002-present will be the ones that future collectors will get the most excited about.

Dollar coins have been split among two concurrent series, the Presidents and the Natives. In 2010, 321.44 million Presidents were struck, and 80.78 million Natives were produced, a ratio of about 4 Presidents for every Native. This fulfills the Congressional requirement that 20% of dollar coins in a given year be of the Native variety. The dollar coin did not see any drastic mintage reduction during the Great Recession, and has maintained a healthy production rate of 400-500 million per year. Most impressive for a coin "nobody uses", especially considering how quickly the Presidents' two predecessors fell off the mintage radar during their tenures in 1979 and 2000, respectively.

To recap, 2010 was the year of a "return to normalcy" for pennies, nickels, and dimes. 2010 quarters will be chased by collectors for the rest of the century. Overall Mint output is recovering from the 2009 bottom-out, and I expect mintage levels to rise through 2012.