Mercury Dime
In 1915, then Mint director Wooley working under the erroneous belief that new coinage had to minted ever 25 years ( When actually the law read there had to be at least 25 years between new coin designs) held a competition for the design of new coinage. He chose 3 well known sculptors of the day to compete Hermon A. MacNeil, Albin Polasek and Adolph A. Weinman. The original idea was to give each sculptor one coin, but in the end Weinman got both the dime and half dollar and MacNeil got the quarter. The Mercury dime or more correctly the Winged Liberty Head dime was the winning design and is still thought to be the most beautiful coin created by many.
It is said that Weinman used Lawyer and Poet’s Wallace Steven’s wife Elsie for his model.
The Front of the Coin
The front of the Mercury dime features the head of Liberty facing left with a wing capped on her head symbolizing freedom of thought. The word LIBERTY starts on the left side of the dime goes over the top of the head of lady Liberty and finishes on the right side. IN GOD WE TRUST is printed on the bottom left side of the dime, and the date it was minted appears at the bottom of the neck. Just up from the date and off to right a little appears A W for Weinman’s last name with a smaller capital A nestled inside the two peaks at the bottom of the W.
Reverse Side of Dime
The Reverse side of the Merury dime is just as interesting as the front due to it’s unique design that is so different from previous coinage that had been minted up to that time. In the center of the reverse side of this coin is fasces (which was a symbol of strength) on top of the fasces is an axe (meant to represent preparedness) and an olive branch running from the left side of the fasces behind it and showing on the right (symbolizing a desire for peace).
The words UNITED STATES OF AMERICA runs from the left side of the coin over the top of the fasces and ends on the left side. At the bottom one the left side of the fasces is written the word ONE with a star dividing the O from the one and the U from the word United. On the right side bottom of the fasces is the word DIME with a star dividing the E from dime and the A from America. The mint mark is below and to the left of the fasces.
The release of the Mercury dime didn’t take place until late in 1916 because the dies were not ready earlier in the year causing the Denver mint to have to run off some of the old Barber dimes at the beginning of the year and resulting in only 264,000 of the 1916 Mercury dimes being minted at the Denver mint making the 1916-D the most desirable of the Mercury dimes for collectors.
One other thing worth noting about this dime, is that when you consider that this dime started its run in 1916 in the midst of World War I and ran until 1945 the end of WWII this dime really tells the story of what was going on in the country and world during its run.