You are right Mike, about the mint previously continuing to mint coins of the previous year, as long as the dies were serviceable. A good example is the 1869 Penny. Mintage is shown as 2,580,480, though far less were actually minted with the 1869 date...most were 1868. Gouby in his book estimated the actual mintage of the 1869's at either 600,000 or 800,000 (I forget the actual number, but was less than 1 million), which is why it is a scarce coin.