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The United States Mint primarily produces circulating coinage for the United States to conduct its trade and commerce. more...

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The main Mint facility is located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and branch facilities are located in Denver, Colorado, San Francisco, California, and West Point, New York.

The Mint was created by Congress with the Coinage Act of 1792, and placed within the Department of State. Per the terms of the Coinage Act, the first Mint building was located in Philadelphia, then the U.S. capital. It was the first building of the federation raised under the Constitution.

The Mint's first director was renowned scientist David Rittenhouse. The position is currently held by Edmund C. Moy. Henry Voight was the first Superintendent and Chief Coiner, and is credited with some of the first U.S. coin designs. Another important position at the Mint is that of Chief Engraver, which has been held by such men as Frank Gasparro, William Barber, Charles E. Barber, James B. Longacre, Christian Gobrecht and Anthony C. Paquet, among others.

The Mint was made an independent agency in 1799, and under the Coinage Act of 1873, became part of the Department of the Treasury. It was placed under the auspices of the Treasurer of the United States in 1981.

Historical facilities

The Mint has operated several branch facilities throughout the United States since the Philadelphia Mint opened in 1792 in a building named "Ye Olde Mint". With the opening of branch mints came the need for mint marks, an identifying feature on the coin to show its facility of origin. The first of these branch mints were the Charlotte, North Carolina (1838–1861), Dahlonega, Georgia (1838–1861), and New Orleans, Louisiana (1838–1909) branches. Both the Charlotte ("C" mint mark) and Dahlonega ("D" mint mark) Mints were opened to facilitate the conversion of local gold deposits into coinage, and minted only gold coins. The Civil War closed both these facilities permanently. The New Orleans Mint ("O" mint mark) closed at the beginning of the Civil War (1861) and did not re-open until the end of Reconstruction in 1879. During its two stints as a minting facility, it produced both gold and silver coinage in eleven different denominations, though only ten denominations were ever minted there at one time (in 1851 silver three-cent pieces, half dimes, dimes, quarters, half dollars, and gold dollars, Quarter Eagles, half eagles, eagles, and double eagles).

A new branch facility was opened in Carson City, Nevada in 1870; it operated until 1893, with a four-year hiatus from 1885 to 1889. Like the Charlotte and Dahlonega branches, the Carson City Mint ("CC" mint mark) was opened to take advantage of local precious metal deposits, in this case, a large vein of silver.

Read more at Wikipedia.org