Mint marks: finding where a coin was struck

Coins · 7 September 2026

A mint mark is a small letter, monogram or symbol identifying the mint that struck the coin. It is easy to miss and it matters more than almost anything else of that size: two coins of the same year and denomination from different mints are usually two separate catalogue entries, and one of them is often much harder to find than the other.

Where to look

• Under or beside the date. The commonest position, and the first place to check.
• Near the denomination or the bottom rim. Often tucked against a design element so it does not disturb the composition.
• Below the portrait or the emblem. Frequently used where the field is otherwise empty.
• On the reverse of commemoratives, where a monogram may sit in the margin rather than in the main design.

A magnifier and raking light help, because mint marks are struck at the same depth as everything else and disappear in flat light – the lighting problem described in the guide to photographing a collection.

What Soviet coins carry

Two mints did most of the work, and their abbreviations appear directly in catalogue and museum descriptions: the Leningrad mint and the Moscow mint. The distinction shows up most clearly in the commemorative programmes, where the same design was struck at both. In the open archive the Olympic silver programme of 1977–1980 is recorded with both marks side by side – for example the five roubles of 1977 in Leningrad and Moscow strikings, and the ten roubles of the same year likewise. Across the archive's 855 Soviet coins the Leningrad mark appears in 25 descriptions and the Moscow one in 16, which is enough to compare the two directly.

Why it changes the coin

1. Separate entries. Same year, same design, different mint – two catalogue lines, often with very different quantities behind them.
2. Different quantities. One mint might strike a fraction of what the other did in the same year, which is where scarcity comes from without any error or variety involved.
3. Different die work. Mints prepared their own dies, so the mark often travels with small differences in lettering and relief – the die varieties described in the guide to the circulation series.
4. Different finishes. Improved-quality strikings for collector sets were not always made at both mints.

What is not a mint mark

• The designer's initials. Usually near the truncation of a portrait, and easy to mistake for a mint letter.
• Privy marks and control symbols, which record something other than the mint.
• Die scratches and damage. A shape that looks like a letter but appears on only one coin is not a mark – the check is repetition, as in the guide to errors and varieties.
• Nothing at all. Plenty of coins carry no mint mark, either because the mint was implied or because the mark was omitted that year. Absence is itself catalogued.

How to record it

Add the mint to the description in your list, beside the year – the two together identify the coin, and neither alone does. The fields are in the guide to cataloguing a collection. When photographing, take one shot of the mark itself at an angle that shows relief; that image settles later questions faster than any note.

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