No U.S. Mint First Strike Program

The U.S. Mint has no First Strike program for the minting and distribution of its coins. However, the Mint sometimes does "first strikings" of new coins, but the "first strikings" are ceremonial and usually are for only two coins, which are not set aside but are put into the regular inventory of the new coins. It is probably from these ceremonial strikings that promoters came up the idea of First Strike coins.

First Strike Coins

Although the U.S. Mint maintains that there is no widely-accepted and standardized numismatic industry definition of "first strike" coins, First Strike coins definitely exist in the coin industry. Still, First Strike coins are recent developments, having been first promoted in 2005. The most frequently promoted First Strike coins are American Gold Eagle coins, American Silver Eagle coins, American Platinum Eagle coins, and the new American Gold Buffalo coins.

One often seen definition of First Strike coins calls them "the first coins struck from a new set of dies." Another calls them, "near-perfect specimens produced within the first few hundred strikings in an edition." The U.S. Mint's production and distribution of coins challenge both definitions.

The U.S. Mint does not track the order in which it mints coins during their production and does not segregate or specifically identify the first coins minted from a set of dies. And, the Mint produces up to fifty percent of the projected sales of new coins weeks prior to their release.

Further, the Mint does not necessarily ship coins in the order in which they were minted, thereby making it impossible for promoters of First Strike coins to know that the coins being promoted as First Strike are actually the "first coins struck from a new set of dies." The numbering on the boxes of coins shipped from the Mint are for accounting and inventory purposes only and do not reflect the order in which the coins were minted.

World's First Coin: The Lydian Lion

Lions have been considered kings of the jungle, and symbols of kingly authority, from time immemorial. One of the most fascinating coins of all time, a coin that I believe is the first true coin, features one the most fascinating lions ever to appear on a coin.

The coin illustrated above is a Lydian third stater, or trite, minted sometime around 600 BC in Lydia, Asia Minor (current-day Turkey), a country in close geographic and cultural proximity to the Greek colonies in Asia Minor.

These coins are pricey (typically costing in the $500 to $2,000 range), and though scarce are not especially rare, just in significant demand because of their history, the evocativeness of their design, their metallurgic characteristics, and their mystery. Other coins may vie for the title of the world's first coin, also from Lydia, nearby in Ionia, in the Middle East, and across the world in India and China, though none do so as persuasively.

Among what we know with confidence is that the Lydian Lion trite was the most common Lydian denomination of its time and that it's made of electrum, an alloy of gold and silver called "white gold" in ancient times.