How can you tell if a coin is minted in San Francisco Denver or Philadelphia?

Answer 1

You have to look for a small letter called the mint mark. D = Denver, S = San Francisco, and P or no letter = Philadelphia.

It can be very confusing to find a mint mark because the Mint has used different ways of marking coins over the years.

Prior to 1965, most coins had their mint marks on the back side, but cents had them under the date. Philadelphia coins did not have mint marks.

During the coin shortage that occurred following the changeover from silver to copper-nickel coinage in 1964, the Mint suspended the use of mint mark letters from 1965 to 1967, when enough new coins had been minted and distributed.

Starting in 1968, all coins had their mint marks moved to the front side, near the date except on quarters where it's near the tail of Washington's wig. Philadelphia coins were still blank.

In 1979 (dollars) and 1980 (nickels to halves) the Philadelphia mint started using a P mint mark on all coins except cents. Cents were left blank because the San Francisco and West Point mints occasionally strike that denomination when Philadelphia and Denver are maxed out, but the Mint didn't want to create "instant rarities" if the production runs were small.

The site below shows the mint mark letters and positions for every U.S. coin minted.