D mint mark

How to read it

The US Mint lists four mint marks in use today, and D for Denver, used from 1906 to the present, is one of them. Congress approved a branch mint in Denver in 1862, but it opened as an assay office, melting and assaying miners’ gold, and struck its first gold and silver coins in 1906. Today it strikes circulating coins, and the Mint says circulating coins are typically made at Denver or Philadelphia, so D and P (or no mark on a cent) are the marks in most pocket change. The Mint also points out that the D “has been around since 1838, but it hasn’t always stood for Denver”.

Also searched as: Dahlonega mint mark, Denver mint mark, D on a coin.

Denver or Dahlonega

The date tells them apart. The Dahlonega Mint in north Georgia struck gold coins from 1838 until the Civil War; the Confederacy took it over in 1861 and it did not reopen (US Mint). Georgia’s Dahlonega Gold Museum puts its output at more than $6 million in gold. CoinWeek says Dahlonega, like the Charlotte mint, was authorised to strike only gold, and lists its issues: gold dollars (1849 to 1861), quarter eagles (1839 to 1859), half eagles (1838 to 1861) and a single $3 issue, in 1854. Numismatic News puts it this way: before 1862, a D “meant something quite different”. A D coin in silver, copper or copper-nickel is from Denver.

Where the D is

On wheat cents the D is below the date, and on Jefferson nickels from 1938 to 1964 it is to the right of Monticello on the reverse (CoinWeek). On silver Roosevelt dimes it is on the reverse, at the left of the base of the torch, and on silver Washington quarters below the olive branches, above the ER of QUARTER. Denver struck Morgan dollars only in 1921, with the D above the DO of DOLLAR. Since 1968 the mark has been on the obverse; on the Roosevelt dime it is above the last digit of the date. The Mint’s 1968 announcement says Denver’s coins carry “a small ‘D’ mint mark”.

D on coins dated 1965 to 1967

The Coinage Act of 1965 banned mint marks for five years but let coins the Denver mint was already authorised to strike keep the D. CoinWeek says dimes struck in Denver from 1965 to 1967 carry no mint mark, and the Mint says none appeared on circulating coins in those years.