For Mercury Dime Collectors
A question from a curious person about their Mercury Dimes:
I found a mercury dime from 1942 and I heard that mercury dimes from 1942 might be rare, because some are actually misprinted and from 1941. I want to sell the dime on eBay, and it would be worth more if it were clean. Does anybody know some good methods to clean mercury dimes?
A question from a curious person:
I have a 1906 dime I thought was a mercury but the profile is facing the opposite direction. It is silver I think and it clearly says one dime on the back and United tates of America on the front with the date of 1906. Thanks very much for any info at all 
Hello! And Welcome! If you’ve stumbled across this site at the moment, you will notice that it’s under construction. We are working feverishly to get this website up and running and make it into a valuable resource for people starting out as well as the veteran Mercury Dime collector. If you would like to participate, there are a number of things that would help, we need help writing tutorials for beginners, we need photographs to illustrate important examples of Mercury Dimes for learning how to grade, identify counterfeits, know the difference between true errors and post-mint damage and many other things that a collector should know. Thanks, and please come back often!
The Mercury Dime is also known as the Winged Liberty Head Dime. It depicts the head in profile of Lady Liberty wearing a winged cap. It became known as the Mercury dime because of its resemblence to the messenger god, Mercury, in spite of the fact that supposedly representing freedom of thought. The design was created by Adolph A. Weinman, a first time designer who went on to later design other coins for the mint. The Mercury Dime was minted from 1916 to 1945 at the Philadelphia, Denver, and San Francisco Mints. The reverse depicted an ancient Roman fasces, a symbol of authority and an olive branch, a symbol of peace.
The introduction of the Mercury Dime was a part of a total overhaul of the design on the United State’s coinage. Starting in 1909 with the introduction of the Lincoln Cent, and in 1913 with the Buffalo Head Nickel, the next in line were the Barber coins, the dime, quarter and half-dollar. The Coinage Act of 1890 restricted the changing of design in the United State’s coinage to every twenty-five years. The Barber coins, which had been in circulation since 1892, weren’t allowed to be phased out as early as the cent and nickel. [Read more...]
Although most commonly referred to as the Mercury dime, the coin does not depict the Roman messenger god. The obverse figure is a depiction of the mythological goddess Liberty wearing a Phrygian cap, a classic symbol of liberty and freedom, with its wings intended to symbolize freedom of thought. Designed by noted sculptor Adolph A. Weinman, the Winged Liberty Head dime is considered by many to be one of the most beautiful U.S. coin designs ever produced. The composition (90 percent silver, 10 percent copper) and diameter (17.9 millimeters) of the Mercury dime was unchanged from the Barber dime.
Weinman (who had studied under Augustus Saint-Gaudens) won a 1915 competition against two other artists for the design job, and is thought to have modeled his version of Liberty on Elsie Kachel Stevens, wife of noted poet Wallace Stevens. The reverse design, a fasces juxtaposed with an olive branch, was intended to symbolize America’s readiness for war, combined with its desire for peace. Although the fasces symbol was later adopted by Benito Mussolini and his National Fascist Party, the symbol has remained quite common in American iconography and has generally avoided any stigma associated with its usage in wartime Italy.