O mint mark

How to read it

New Orleans was one of three branch mints Congress set up in 1835, with Charlotte and Dahlonega. The Mint says Charlotte and Dahlonega concentrated on gold, while New Orleans struck both gold and silver. The Historic New Orleans Collection dates its first operations to March 8, 1838, and says its coins were “stamped with local mint mark ‘O.’” Louisiana seized the mint in January 1861 and kept striking US coins until the Confederacy took it over that April. It was the only one of the three to strike coins again after the war, silver and gold from 1879 until it stopped coining in 1909.

Also searched as: New Orleans mint mark, O on a coin.

O on Morgan dollars

New Orleans struck Morgan dollars from 1879 to 1904. CoinWeek places the O on the reverse, below the ribbon loops and above the DO of DOLLAR, where the other branch mints’ marks also go.

Confederate coins from New Orleans

The Historic New Orleans Collection says only four proof coins of Confederate currency from New Orleans survive. Within a month of the takeover, the Confederate Treasury secretary, Christopher Memminger, closed the mint because bullion was hard to get. Between January and April 1861, under the state of Louisiana, it went on striking US coins.