Lincoln Cents, Memorial Reverse Mintage

After fifty years of production and widespread circulation, the reverse design of the Lincoln Cent was changed. The redesign coincided with the 150th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln. The new reverse would feature a depiction of the Lincoln Memorial by Frank Gasparro. The obverse of the coin would continue to feature the bust of Lincoln, originally designed by Victor D. Brenner.

Lincoln Memorial Cent

The Lincoln Memorial Cent series generally had higher mintage levels for individual issues than the prior Lincoln Wheat Cents. For this reason, the “wheaties” are generally saved from circulation while the coins displaying the Memorial reverse are left to circulate. However, there are some lower mintage coins produced at the San Francisco Mint.

For the Lincoln Memorial Cent series:

  • There were a total of 104 regular circulating issues for the series. This includes coins mintage at Philadelphia (no mint mark), Denver (“D” mint mark), and San Francisco (“S” mint mark).
  • There were only twelve issues of the series with mintages under one billion. Only one issue of the series had a mintage above 10 billion.
  • The lowest mintage coin is the 1968-S Lincoln Cent at 258,270,001.
  • The highest mintage coin is the 1982 Lincoln Cent at 10,712,525. During this year, the composition of the coin was changed from 95% copper and 5% zinc to 97.5% zinc and 2.5% copper.
  • The average mintage across all regular issues of the series is 4,110,639,650.
  • Total mintage for all circulation strike Lincoln Memorial Cents is 427,506,523,571 coins!

Lincoln Memorial Cent Mintages

IssueMintage
1959609,715,000
1959-D1,279,760,000
1960586,405,000
1960-D1,580,884,000
1961753,345,000
1961-D1,753,266,700
1962606,045,000
1962-D1,793,148,140
1963754,110,000
1963-D1,774,020,400
19642,648,575,000
1964-D3,799,071,500
19651,497,224,900
19662,188,147,783
19673,048,667,100
19681,707,880,970
1968-D2,886,269,600
1968-S258,270,001
19691,136,910,000
1969-D4,002,832,200
1969-S547,309,631
19701,898,315,000
1970-D2,891,438,900
1970-S693,192,814
19711,919,490,000
1971-D2,911,045,600
1971-S525,133,459
19722,933,255,000
1972-D2,665,071,400
1972-S376,939,108
19733,728,245,000
1973-D3,549,576,588
1973-S317,177,295
19744,232,140,523
1974-D4,235,098,000
1974-S409,426,660
19755,451,476,142
1975-D4,505,275,300
19764,674,292,426
1976-D4,221,592,455
19774,469,930,000
1977-D4,194,062,300
19785,558,605,000
1978-D4,280,233,400
19796,018,515,000
1979-D4,139,357,254
19807,414,705,000
1980-D5,140,098,660
19817,491,750,000
1981-D5,373,235,677
198210,712,525,000
1982-D6,012,979,368
19837,752,355,000
1983-D6,467,199,428
19848,151,079,000
1984-D5,569,238,906
19855,648,489,887
1985-D5,287,399,926
19864,491,395,493
1986-D4,442,866,698
19874,682,466,931
1987-D4,879,389,514
19886,092,810,000
1988-D5,253,740,443
19897,261,535,000
1989-D5,345,467,111
19906,851,765,000
1990-D4,922,894,533
19915,165,940,000
1991-D4,158,442,076
19924,648,905,000
1992-D4,448,673,300
19935,684,705,000
1993-D6,426,650,571
19946,500,850,000
1994-D7,131,765,000
19956,411,400,000
1995-D7,128,560,000
19966,612,465,000
1996-D6,510,795,000
19974,622,800,000
1997-D4,576,555,000
19985,032,155,000
1998-D5,225,353,500
19995,237,600,000
1999-D6,360,065,000
20005,503,200,000
2000-D8,774,220,000
20014,959,600,000
2001-D5,374,990,000
20023,260,800,000
2002-D4,028,055,000
20033,300,000,000
2003-D3,548,000,000
20043,379,600,000
2004-D3,456,400,000
20053,935,600,000
2005-D3,764,450,000
20064,290,000,000
2006-D3,944,000,000
20073,763,400,000
2007-D3,638,800,000
20082,596,000,000
2008-D2,849,600,000

Source: Lincoln Cent