West Point Mint Coins

From silver vault to mint

The West Point facility was built in 1937 and opened in 1938 as a bullion depository, close to the United States Military Academy on the Hudson River. Its first job was storing silver, which earned it the nickname the Fort Knox of silver. It had no mint mark and struck no coins for more than three decades.

That changed during the cent shortage of the 1970s. The Mint installed presses at West Point and began striking Lincoln cents there in 1974, with no mint mark, to relieve Philadelphia. West Point later struck unmarked quarters as well. These coins are identical to Philadelphia issues and cannot be told apart.

The first W coins and full mint status

The W mint mark made its debut on the 1984 Olympic ten-dollar gold coin, the first US gold coin struck in more than fifty years. When the American Eagle bullion program launched in 1986, West Point became its main home for gold and later for silver and platinum. Congress made West Point an official branch mint in 1988.

Since then it has specialized in bullion and in proof and uncirculated collector coins, including many commemoratives. It also stores part of the nation's gold reserve.

W coins made for circulation and sets

For collectors of ordinary denominations, W coins are a short and interesting list. The 1996-W Roosevelt dime was made for the dime's 50th anniversary and placed only in uncirculated mint sets, giving it a mintage of 1,457,000. In 2019 the Mint struck W cents in uncirculated, proof and reverse proof formats as bonuses in collector sets, the first cents to carry a W.

The best-known modern W coins are the America the Beautiful quarters of 2019 and 2020. The Mint struck 2 million of each design with a W and mixed them into circulating bags as a treasure hunt for the public. Against mintages of tens or hundreds of millions for Philadelphia and Denver, those W quarters are worth saving whenever you find one.

Checking for all ten W quarters

The ten W quarters share the America the Beautiful program's national park and site designs. The 2019 group shows Lowell National Historical Park in Massachusetts, American Memorial Park in the Northern Mariana Islands, War in the Pacific National Historical Park in Guam, San Antonio Missions National Historical Park in Texas and the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness in Idaho. The 2020 group shows the National Park of American Samoa, Weir Farm National Historic Site in Connecticut, Salt River Bay in the US Virgin Islands, Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park in Vermont and Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve in Kansas.

A practical way to hunt them is to sort any quarters of those two years by design, then check only the matching designs for a W. Because the W versions were mixed into regular bags, they can appear anywhere in the country rather than near West Point. Keep any you find out of pocket change, since circulation wear quickly reduces their appeal to collectors.

How to find West Point coins

The W on modern quarters sits on the obverse to the right of Washington's ribbon, the same spot used for P and D. Check rolls and change from 2019 and 2020 quarters first. For the 2019-W cents, the coins exist only in collector sets, so any W cent in circulation was spent from one of those sets.

Proof W coins are normally sold in Mint packaging. Keep them in the original capsules and certificates if you plan to sell them as a set. Removing them exposes them to fingerprints and spotting, which hurt mirror proof surfaces quickly.

Telling W apart from other letters

Under low magnification a worn W can be confused with a damaged or filled mint mark. A genuine W has two clear internal points and sharp serifs. If a coin's letter looks blurry, compare its height and position with an authenticated W quarter of the same year before assuming you have found one.

Frequently asked questions