U.S. MINT COINAGE DIE RECORDS

One of the fundamental questions in American numismatic research relates to coinage die production and usage within the U.S. series. Since the 1850s, collectors have avidly pursued U.S. coins by die marriage, beginning with the early copper coins and today more extensively. Most of this work has been done by examining the coins directly, as the Mint has never centralized the related records.

Imagine if this information had been cleanly preserved by the Mint – the Red Book might have listed die counts along with mintage records from the beginning, and the hunt would be on to find the coins. As it is, researchers must ferret out the information from multiple locations within the National Archives & Records Administration, and even then our knowledge is not complete.

To the rescue comes Roger Burdette, who has gathered together the known archival data, consolidating research from Bob Julian and others to do so. This is now available on Newman Portal. Although not 100% comprehensive, as much of the data was probably never recorded to begin with; die variety researchers of 19th century coinage in particular will find useful information to complement to their investigation of the actual coins.

Image: New Orleans die records for 1854, from the 1839-1854 branch Mint die register

Link to U.S. Mint coinage die records on Newman Portal:
https://nnp.wustl.edu/library/book/562632

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web