The West Point Mint is striking 2019-W Lincoln cents in three finishes for inclusion in separate packaging as premiums for three annual numismatic coin sets.

None of the 2019-W Lincoln cents is to be struck in circulation quality for circulation distribution or numismatic sales.

Inside Coin World: Two date styles on 1827 half dollars: The March 18, 2019, issue of ‘Coin World’ offers more than a half dozen columns exclusive to the print and digital editions. Here’s a preview of three of them.

The premium 2019-W Lincoln cents are the first Lincoln cents struck at the West Point facility in more than 40 years and the first to bear the facility’s W Mint mark.

When Lincoln cents were last struck at the West Point Mint in the 1970s for general circulation, the coins were identical to cents of the same date struck at the Philadelphia Mint and, in some years, at the San Francisco Assay Office (1978, for example), none having Mint marks. (The West Point facility was then officially a bullion depository, and the San Francisco plant, an assay office.)

T.V. Johnson, director of the U.S. Mint’s Office of Corporate Communications, confirmed Feb. 25 to Coin World that a standard Proof 2019-W cent will be included separately “in clear United States Mint plastic wrap” with the standard 2019 Proof set to be issued on March 1 for $27.95. The remaining 10 coins in the set will be enclosed, five coins each, in two individual hard-plastic coin lenses. Those 10 coins will be struck in Proof at the San Francisco Mint.

The standard Proof set coins exhibit frosted devices against mirrored fields.

Reverse Proof version

The Silver Proof set, to be issued April 24, will be accompanied by, as a premium in separate packaging, an 11th coin, a Reverse Proof 2019-W Lincoln cent. 

In contrast to the standard Proof finish, Reverse Proof coins exhibit mirrored design elements against frosted fields.

The remaining 10 coins in the 2019 Silver Proof set are San Francisco Mint strikes, with the Roosevelt dime, five America the Beautiful quarter dollars and Kennedy half dollar struck in .999 fine silver instead of the previous 90 percent silver, 10 percent copper composition.

The Silver Proof sets are priced at $54.95.

Uncirculated version

The Uncirculated Mint set, which includes 10 coins each from the Denver and Philadelphia Mints, will have as its premium, the 21st coin in the set, a 2019-W Lincoln cent with Uncirculated finish.

Pricing for the Uncirculated Mint set with premium is not yet announced.

Johnson said the Mint is in the process of photographing examples of the three West Point cents, but only the Proof version images were available for release as of Feb. 28.  

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