United States Mint officials are still determining when it will be safe to reopen the public tours at the Denver and Philadelphia Mints and the sales centers at both facilities and Mint headquarters amid COVID-19 concerns.

The sales outlets have been shuttered since March 13, 2020, and the public tours canceled as of the same date.

“The United States Mint’s highest priority is the safety, health and well-being of our workforce,” the bureau’s spokesman Michael White said in an email statement March 18. “As such, we are continuing to limit access to our facilities to employees only. We will provide updates when decisions have been made on the reopening of tours and sales centers.

Mint Director David J. Ryder said the issue has not been discussed for a while, but he said it’s likely the earliest the tours and sales centers could be reopened would be sometime late summer or early fall.

“That said, we have not discussed it yet,” Ryder said.

Until the public tours were suspended, the Denver Mint conducted guided tours of the Colorado production facility. The tour is one of Denver’s most popular tourist attractions, with the free admission tickets a hot commodity that required telephone reservations.

The tour at the Philadelphia Mint, self-guided, allowed visitors to watch circulating coin production from an overhead windowed hallway replete with items from the Mint’s heritage assets, including plaster models, galvanos, coins and medals.

Operation of Denver and Philadelphia sales centers had been conducted until the shutdown under contract with Aramark. The U.S. Mint operated its sales center located on the first floor of the nine-story Mint headquarters building at 801 Ninth Ave. NW in Washington, D.C.

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