P mint mark

How to read it

The US Mint lists P for Philadelphia as one of the four mint marks in use today, with D for Denver, S for San Francisco and W for West Point. Philadelphia was the Mint’s only facility in its first years, and it kept striking its coins without a mark after the first branch mints opened in 1838. In the Mint’s 1968 announcement, Philadelphia’s coins are “distinguished by the absence of mint marks”, which is why a coin with no mint mark is usually a Philadelphia coin. The P first appeared in 1942 and was dropped after World War II. It came back on the Susan B. Anthony dollar in 1979 and, the Mint says, in 1980 on every denomination except the cent, “which still holds true today”.

Also searched as: Philadelphia mint mark, P on a coin.

The wartime P, 1942 to 1945

When nickel was taken out of the five-cent coin during World War II, the Mint marked the new alloy by moving the mint mark from the right of Monticello to above its dome, and put a P on Philadelphia’s coins for the first time (US Mint). CoinWeek notes that these marks are oversized. The coins are the war nickels. When the normal alloy came back after the war, the marks went back to their old places and the P was dropped.

P on a cent

Philadelphia’s cents carry no P, with one exception. In 2017 the Mint put a P on the cents made in Philadelphia for its 225th anniversary, and the Mint says the change was for the 2017 cents only. In 2025 it auctioned the last 232 circulating cents in special sets.

Where the P is

The Mint’s 1968 rule put every mint mark on the obverse: to the right of the portrait on the cent, nickel, dime and quarter, and under the portrait on the half dollar. CoinWeek places the P on the Jefferson nickel at the lower right, after the last digit of the date, and on the Roosevelt dime above the last digit of the date.

A missing P

A Philadelphia coin from 1980 on with no P is out of the ordinary. The best known is the 1982 “No P” dime, which CoinWeek says is thought to have come from a single working die that was not punched with the P. Some modern collector coins are made without it: CoinWeek notes that Philadelphia’s 2021 Peace dollar has no mint mark.