Quarter Mintage Economic Indicator

Another interesting fringe indicator- The State Quarter Mintage Indicator.

The theory goes that coin demand follows economic activity. In times of prosperity, more money circulates and the Mint produces more coins to meet the demand. In hard times, less money circulates and the Mint produces less coins. In addition, during a downturn, people start cleaning out their couch cushions and cashing in jars of coins to help make ends meet. This further reduces the need to produce new coins.

Throughout history, most low mintage key date coins have been produced during tough economic times.

The mintage trends for State Quarters seem to have bottomed at the start of the year. The Oklahoma State Quarter had a combined mintage of 416 million. This represents the lowest mintage in the entire nine year history of the series.

Following the Oklahoma Quarter, the New Mexico and Arizona Quarters have had mintages of 488 million and 510 million.

Note that the highest mintage State Quarter was for Virginia. The coin was released on October 16, 2000 and had a combined mintage of 1.6 billion.

Hat tip to this guy.