MORE ON MINT AND FEDERAL RESERVE BAGS

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V29 2026 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 29, Number 45, 2026, Article 14

Inspired by Pete Smith's article, Tom DeLorey submitted these thoughts on U.S. Mint and Federal Reserve Bank coin bags. Thanks. -Editor

Here is a file copy of a letter from the Director of the Mint to the Denver Mint in 1922 informing it as to what size coin bags it could order from the Philadelphia Mint, which made the actual bags. Note that the different size bags are identified by number, including the interesting size 7-1/2. Unfortunately the letter does not identify the actual size of each bag, which presumably the Denver Mint already knew.

It would be logical that the Federal Reserve Banks receiving coins from the various Mints would use the same bag size numbering system for the bags that the FRBs ordered for themselves.

And here is a 5-5-22 letter from the Denver Mint to the Director of the Mint advising that it had purchased 35,000 Number 1 bags, and would not be requiring any more. Since the only coins being struck in Denver in May of 1922 were Standard Dollars, it is safe to say that the #1 bag size was for dollars.

And here's a report from the Sewing Room at the Philadelphia Mint for December, 1907, showing various items made and their costs to ridiculously trivial fractions of a cent.

Note that multiple size bags were made for Silver, Nickel and Bronze coinages. As the Mints were still supplying coins directly to the Sub-Treasuries at the time (the end of which greatly affected the story of the 1922-D cents; see my book), it was presumably so that the Sub-Treasuries could then just sell different sized intact bags to local banks without the necessity of counting them out.

These various small bags would have been shipped to the Sub-Treasuries in one large keg. I have never seen an original Mint Keg. Perhaps they were anonymous for security reasons.

File copies courtesy of Roger W. Burdette, who provided me with many such documents for use in my book on the Cents of 1922.

"The Early American Coppers (EAC) people spent a lot of time discussing kegs in the past. During the large cent era, copper planchets were shipped from England in kegs. I suspect the Mint reused those kegs to ship out their product. I think of kegs as generic shipping containers that could be ordered from the local cooper and used to ship nails or grommets or any dry bulk material. I doubt if the kegs that the Mint used were ever marked as Mint products."