I have been exploring my collection by where the coins were struck. I've learned some interesting things. Here are some observations.
As no surprise at all, the two largest mints, as measured by outputted mintage, were Philadelphia and Denver. With their mintages combined, these two mints have produced nearly half of the coins, 750 billion out of 1.4 trillion coins.
The oldest active mint in my collection is Vienna, starting at 1760 and still cranking out eurocoins today. Beijing deserves an honorable mention, with undated cash coins going back to the 17th century and still striking yuan renmimbi today. However, Beijing is one of many mints in my collection that don't publish mintage numbers, so it's ranking among world mints by output is largely low.
The third largest mint was a surprise. I was expecting a British mint, but instead it was Osaka, with just under 100 billion struck. The Royal Mint's modern facility in Llantrisant, Wales was fourth at 58 billion, bolstered by the many commonwealth coins struck there. Ottawa had fifth rank with 57 billion, with quite the variety of foreign mintage orders just in the last few decades. Mexico City was sixth with 49 billion coins, Paris seventh with 47 billion (and quite a few overseas jobs), and Madrid eighth with 39 billion.
The mints of the Americas are dominated by a strong few: Philadelphia, Denver, Ottawa and Mexico City, and Rio de Janeiro. The remaining 12 mints are smaller or less prolific, less than 3% of the continents combined. There are surprisingly few mints in central America, South America and the Caribbean. There are none active between Guatemala City and Bogota, and the only island mint still going is in Havana. As a consequence, many of the smaller nations in this region shop their coinage out to national and private mints in the USA and Europe.
Unlike the Americas, Europe's mint houses are spread out. 57 different cities have struck coins in my collection. Many are active modern mints, like the big German five (ADFGJ) and the other western capitals. But there are several discontinued mints represented among my battered 19th century coppers.... Naples, Rouen, Dresden, Turin and Hanover, among others. There are also private mints in Schwerte and Chiasso that survive by foreign contracts alone, without striking any of their own nation's coinage. Private mints in the UK are there too... Heaton, Kings Norton, Pobjoy. Russian mints are underrepresented in particular, since Moscow and St. Petersburg both keep mum about their outputs.
Asian mints are somewhat different. They aren't as good at reporting mintage numbers, especially in China and India. As a consequence, only the transparent mints show up in my analysis. Osaka has minted half of my Asian-made coins, while the other 19 mint houses try to keep up, namely in Pathum Thani, Shah Alam, Istanbul, and Manila/Quezon City.
Africa and Oceania have few mints reporting. Canberra and Pretoria are the two of note.
If Nigeria ever produces its own coins domestically, Lagos could become a serious mint. I have no idea if Jakarta has ever produced any coins. Beijing and the mints of India probably could also be some of the most active mints in the world, but without detailed mintage reports, we can only speculate. There are also few active mints in the Arab world, notably Tehran, Lahore and Kabul.
Mint location information is one area where Colnect still has an edge over Numista, but we are making good progress at documenting it, and more credibly, too.
I love this intersection of geography and history!
