D = Denver lack of mint mark = Philly

[penny_wise]

My inexperience will show with this question.

For Lincoln's, D = Denver; S = San Francisco; Lack of mint mark = Philadelphia. On some Linc's I have found, I put them in 2X2 and for Pilly, I just put the date, since lack of mark IS Philly, so in my mind date with lack of mark also means Philly. Here, I see where you put either "P" or Philadelphia along with the date. - While I'm assuming that it's for clarity, you know what they say about assuming.

Ok, here it comes.... Why?

[smed]

Here's how I look at it.

The mintmark is there to tell you where the coin was minted. Lack of a mintmark in the US indicates the Philadephia Mint.

Going along these lines (mintmark is for identification), I label coins DATE-M, "M" for mintmark -- hopefully that's obvious.

I do NOT label coins without a mintmark as DATE-P because there is no "P" mintmark on those coins. To call a coin an "1881-P Morgan" is bad IMNSHO, because it is not precise. It is NOT an 1881-P Morgan because there ARE NO 1881-P Morgans. It IS, however, an 1881 Philadelphia Mint Morgan.

Seeing advertisements listing 1881-P Morgans drives me nuts.

[coop]

But not all Cents missing the mintmark were made from the Philly mint. Case in point are the 1965-67 years of coins. Because of a shortage of coinage those years because all silver coins being hoarded, they didn't identify the mint they were from to help reduce collecting one from each mint. With the panic over silver that left a lack of coins in circulation of silver, but some coins from Denver would not have the D mintmark for those years of Cents as well as other denomination. They didn't even make proof sets those years. They made a Special mint set those years, but that was as closeto a proof coin they made those years. So I guess to an answer to the question, do all missing mintmark coins associated with the Philly mint, the real answer would be no because of the coins minted in those years of 1965-1967. I guess being a child of the 60's shows my age, but something to share with others that may have not experianced those years.

[cladking]

Then it gets more complicated with the addition of the P mintmark on the dollar in '79 and the other coins (except the cent) in 1980. Even with cents there is the 1990 No-S coin.

[bruce 1947]

That is very true coop another example is the jefferson nickel some have a p-mint mark and some don't. I never lable a coin with a p-mint mark but I do not have a lot of people looking at my coins. And if I buy a coin I just say I need one from the Philadelphia mint.

[coppercoins]

Answering the initial question asked in this thread...

The die variety identification system used on this site uses a 'P' for the Philly mint to keep a place holder for the mint of manufacture for the database. Additionally, it keeps everything in-place for columnar listing. The mint of manufacture goes in the fifth column when listing die numbers.

Furthermore, it is far easier to program for, and far easier to force into specific die order in a computer. Yes, I could have the programming "remove" the 'P' from die numbers before posting them to the screen, but that column for the purpose of the listing system shows the mint of manufacture, not necessarily just the mark found on the coins.

It's for clarafication, ease of data retrieval, and for a nice, even number of characters in all die numbers.

[penny_wise]

Thank you. Knowing computers and the way they sort, I understand.