Royal Mint Issues - What Are Released Mintage Figures

[VickySilver]

Here goes (again):

If the Royal Mint releases a mintage figure, how can we know if this is an authorized mintage (maximum), number struck or number released?

I had actually asked this inquiring about Jamaica proof sets of the '90s and early '00s, but was wondering if anybody might have the answer

as I was not able to get an answer from the Royal Mint (or in this case Bank of Jamaica). I am of the opinion that the answer may be that it

"just depends", and that these numbers may reflect any of the three possiblilities. It becomes even more difficult with foreign issues I would

imagine, because who knows what happens to the coins or sets sent to the various Central Banks?

[Rob]

I would think that for short runs of a few thousand, the time spent readying the equipment would nearly equal the time spent striking. Unless the coins are struck on an individual basis as orders demand (unlikely in the event of a few thousand), it would seem probable that a single run would suffice and so the numbers ought to be accurate as released to the public. The mint isn't going to produce 20 for Fred and 50 for Joe followed by a wait for the next order to materialise as the production run is likely to have been set long in advance with orders taken prior to production. There may be a slight discrepancy between numbers struck and the official mintage as I would expect them to produce sufficient numbers to cover the allotted mintage. i.e official total plus a few to cover any mistrikes. This would ensure only one striking period was required. Any excess can be returned to the pot. This would be the most cost effective method of producing proofs or commemorative issues.

[VickySilver]

Sounds quite plausible...Still with regards to some issues for Jamaican and other Caribbean entities, certain years are enormously scarcer it would seem than others of the same mintage, and I can't quite figure it out.

An interesting bit: the sometimes infamous Franklin Mint struck fairly high quality coins. One of the uncirculated types was "matte", and evidently in the mid-70s very scare-to-rare gold issues were sent by BoJ to small branch banks in the country. Consequently, they appear to be nearly unknown; an example is the matte Columbus ?1975 FM matte? issue...