By David C. Harper, Numismatic News October 08, 2009

Even though September coinage production fell by half from August, there were fewer zeroes in the monthly U.S. Mint box score than the month before.

Coin presses were completely inactive in September for dimes and nickels. Also, Philadelphia’s presses remained at rest where half dollars were concerned. For the other denominations, the presses were given something to do.

More than half of the overall 181.96 million coins struck in September were cents. The 93.2 million coins recorded during the month pushed the overall 2009 cent total to 2.0264 billion pieces.

A small output of 200,000 Kennedy half dollars at Denver nudged the total so far this year from that facility to 1.9 million coins and raised the question in collector minds as to whether there will be a balancing 200,000 production in Philadelphia in October.

Presidential dollar output was 40.6 million coins, with Philadelphia producing more than two-thirds of the total.

Denver turned the tables on Philadelphia with a far higher quarter output of 24 million coins as compared to the mother mint’s 3.8 million, but this becomes more understandable when looking at the figures for the full year. For the first nine months output was 232.12 million quarters at Philadelphia and 237.4 million at Denver.

A perfect balance was achieved between the two mints as far as production of the 2009 Native American dollar was concerned with 10.08 million being struck at each facility in September. The nine-month tally also is fairly evenly split.

When looking at 2009 production overall, both Denver and Philadelphia have produced more than 1.5 billion coins apiece and fewer than 30 million coins separates one total from the other.