USA Coin Album: The Denver Mint Coinage of 1934 - Part 1

The Great Depression that began in 1929 brought the United States Mint’s production of coins to a near standstill by 1931. This downturn in economic activity hit the Midwest especially hard, as American agriculture already had been in a slump since the mid 1920s. The Denver Mint was the main supplier of coins to that region, so it was the first to feel a fall off in demand for new coins. Many of its products from the latter part of the 1920s remained in vaults for several years before banks and businesses finally began to request fresh coin.

Advertisements in The Numismatist from the late 1930s reveal the great availability of Mint State rolls of such coins for sale. Especially common in quantity were 1929-D and 1931-D dimes and 1926-D quarter dollars. These rolls were just surfacing around 1934, a time when the need for additional coins finally revived minting activity at Denver. This new demand worked off all existing stocks of earlier dated coins very quickly, and new pieces dated 1934-D were produced in significant quantities for all six current denominations. Collectors took note of this development, and the following editorial observation appeared in the October, 1934 issue of The Numismatist: “In the [first] eight months of 1934, the records show, more minor coins were struck than in the last three years together.”

This recovery began slowly, and the first coinage of 1934 consisted of 5,746,000 cents struck in April. Treasury Reports of the time did not break this down by mints, so it’s not known whether any of these coins were made at Denver. By year’s end, however, there were over 28 million new cents dated 1934-D, more than four times the number coined there in 1933. This issue is not rare, and NGC has certified several hundred graded MS 65 RD (red).

It was about this time that a large number of collectors began saving rolls of new coins, a practice that previously had been very haphazard until several low-mintage issues of 1931-33 directed attention toward modern coins. Such stockpiling has guaranteed that there are no rare United States coins from that point onward, aside from varieties and mint errors.

All 1934-D cents carry the Large D mintmark introduced on the 1933-D issue to replace the smaller mintmark that had been used since 1917. There are two intriguing varieties of 1934-D cents found within The Cherrypickers’ Guide (CPG), one having the mintmark double punched and the other with no fewer than four impressions of letter D. These are rather scarce, and NGC has certified just a single example of the first and none of the second.

Nickels hadn’t been coined at the Denver Mint since 1929, and it was not until August of 1934 that production of the five-cent piece resumed. The total issue of 1934-D nickels was just 7,480,000 pieces, a modest mintage that would be nearly doubled the following year. This date is the key to the popular Buffalo Nickel “short set” of 1934-38, though it is only moderately scarce in grades below MS 65. In contrast, gems (MS 65 and higher) are quite elusive, and most 1934-D nickels of all grades are weakly struck from dies revealing various degrees of erosion.

At least one reverse die bearing the older, Small D mintmark was still on hand, and this variety forms a minority of the surviving coins. Few collectors are aware of this distinction, and a market for the scarce Small D variety has not really developed yet. Series specialists are always on the lookout for these coins, but NGC has certified only six examples, the highest being two coins grading MS 66.

1934-dated dimes were first struck in June, but once again the breakdown by mint was not included in contemporary reports (such information is available at the National Archives, but few persons have the opportunity or inclination to go there for this purpose). Some 6,722,000 dimes were struck at Denver by year’s end. Again this mintage is split into dimes coined with the Small D reverse and those bearing the new Large D. While the former are a bit scarcer, the difference in populations is not great enough for either variety to carry a premium. Of more interest are the repunched mintmark varieties known for Large D reverses. NGC attributes two of these under its VarietyPlus Service, one that’s included in CPG and labeled with a FS (Fivaz-Stanton) number, and one that’s not in CPG. Such varieties are assigned a VP (VarietyPlus) number by NGC and are cross-referenced to the master listing maintained by the error/variety club CONECA.

1934-D dimes were made with some care, and gems are available to collectors. Most of these lack fully struck central bands on the fasces (designated as FB for Full Bands), but even the sharper coins exist in fair numbers for specialists. 1934-D dimes frequently reveal brilliant patches in their fields from vigorous polishing of the dies done to eradicate die-clash impressions or erosion lines, but this brilliance typically is not uniform enough to receive a PL (Prooflike) designation. Next month I’ll continue my study of Denver’s 1934 coinage with a look at the quarters, halves and dollars of this date and mint.

David W. Lange's column, “USA Coin Album,” appears monthly in The Numismatist, the official publication of the American Numismatic Association.