Branch mint

A branch mint is a satellite operation of (usually) a national mint. In many cases it will add a Mint mark to coins that is different from the one that may be used at the main facility, although each country has different rules that may vary over time. Added letters are shown below for the United States, France, and Switzerland. Because of this difference coins produced at branch mints may be worth more or less to collectors than those from the main one, depending on their mintages.[1]

The First US Branch Mint in California is located at 608-619 Commercial Street, San Francisco, San Francisco County. The branch opened on April 3, 1854. Today the building houses the Pacific Heritage Museum.

United States

The original and main Mint of the United States Mint, has been located in Philadelphia (P or no letter), since 1793. Its current facility, Philadelphia's fourth, opened in 1969. U.S. branch mints have been located at:

Great Britain

The Royal Mint of the United Kingdom is located at Llantrisant, Wales. It is currently the only facility of the Royal Mint but has had branch mints in the past, located at:

France

The Monnaie de Paris – the French Mint – is a state-owned industrial and commercial company (EPIC). The current French mint facility is in Paris. There have been numerous French mints in modern times, i.e. since the French Revolution. These mints include cities outside of the traditional French borders as a result of the French Empire and other political events.

  • Paris (A or no letter) 1795-present
  • Metz (AA)1797-1800
  • Rouen (B)1796-1846; 1853-1857
  • Beaumont-le-Roger (B)1941-1973
  • Bruxelles/Brussels (B in a circle)- 1939
  • Strasbourg (BB)1797-1870
  • Castelsarrasin (C)1914; 1943-1946
  • Genova (CL) 1813-1814 (First Empire)
  • Lyon (D)1796-1840; 1848-1858
  • Genève/Geneva (G) (Switzerland) 1800-1805 (First Empire)
  • La Rochelle (H)1803-1835
  • Limoges (I)1797-1835
  • Bordeaux (K)1797-1803
  • Bayonne (L)1798-1835
  • Toulouse (M)1803-1836
  • Marseille (M/A)1801-1809
  • Perpignan (Q)1797-1835
  • Orléans (R)1797
  • Nantes (T)1797-1820; 1826-1835
  • Lille (W)1798 1846; 1853-1857
  • Ütrecht (FISH)(Netherlands)1812-1813 (First Empire)
  • Turin/Torino (U)(Italy)1803-1813 (First Empire)
  • Rome (Crown/R)(Italy) 1812-1813 (First Empire)
  • London (R)(England)1815 (antecedent to the Restoration)
  • Philadelphia (USA) 1944 (result of the German occupation of France)

Canada

The Royal Canadian Mint, based in Ottawa, has one branch in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The Ottawa mint was itself a branch mint until the Royal Canadian Mint became independent of the British Royal Mint.

There was also a branch mint at Hull, Quebec, which was opened for a few years.

Switzerland

The current Swiss mint is located in Bern (B). In the past, Swiss coins were manufactured in Bruxelles/Brussels (B.), Strasbourg (BB) and (AB) and Paris (A). French coins of the First French Empire were made in Geneva. Most of the Swiss Cantons were still producing their own coinage in 1848 when Switzerland re-constituted itself as a Confederation and, in 1850, pegged the newly adopted Swiss franc to the French franc.[2]

gollark: ```pythonprint("Hacked with python 3")```
gollark: ```print "Hacked with Python 2 or Lua"```
gollark: (produced by the common Unix tool `haxxdump`)
gollark: 011d3b0 ecda fe42 f33d d112 2b8c 7e1d 24d2 11e5011d3c0 2475 ae6a bb0f 0c59 592b 3e75 6074 5f61011d3d0 ff42 a907 c773 c81f 3095 97ba 7fe2 5270011d3e0 c021 d886 1dfc 01eb f22a 0174 38cb ab3e011d3f0 2476 6efa 2bb0 6dde cd92 0222 5467 7221011d400 bb13 2647 77f7 8c51 6206 e40d 3c85 117c011d410 86bb 928f 2234 bb31 298e dd89 7209 6a00011d420 49b1 182b 52fc 6659 f720 c14c 7064 213c011d430 be13 5b7f 36db 9228 232a be39 1c9e 4065011d440 3e92 3fa8 a538 8a60 c599 7c88 9f72 9748011d450 8a5d fc83 b21b e48d 666a 8670 3d61 0225
gollark: I have made many a useless side project.

References
  1. All About Mintmarks
  2. Swissmint Archived May 13, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
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