It’s
been more than 200 years since the U.S. Mint struck
a small run of “dismes” that launched the
denomination. Full-scale production, if you can call
it that, began in 1796. Since then the dime has covered
a lot of territory, culminating in Roosevelt dimes with
annual mintages reaching into the billions.
With so much material available, choosing a handful
of the most historic dimes isn’t easy. The following
selections have nothing to do with rarity or value but
are based more on what each coin has contributed to
the denomination’s ongoing success. If a few of
them are surprisingly affordable, so much the better.
1792 Dime
This is the one that started
it all, even if collectors can’t agree whether it was
a pattern or a regular issue. The Act of April 2, 1792 authorized
the construction of a U.S. Mint in Philadelphia. It also provided
for a range of copper, silver and gold coins, including silver
“dismes”—the original spelling—each
“to be of the value of one-tenth of a dollar or unit,
and to contain 37 grains and two-sixteenths parts of a grain
of pure, or 41 grains and three-fifths parts of a grain of
standard silver.” It would have one-tenth the silver
weight and value of a dollar.
Thomas Jefferson may have
suggested the original spelling. Possibly it was to be pronounced
“deem.” Then again, the “s” might
have been silent.
Lawmakers required the disme to have on its obverse “an
impression emblematic of liberty, with an inscription of the
word ‘Liberty’ and the year of coinage.”
The reverse had to have “the figure or representation
of an eagle, with the inscription ‘United States of
America.”
It was a simple formula—a
coin that was perfect for a decimal system of coinage and
had a simple design everyone could recognize. But there was
a big catch. The Mint had not yet been built, and officials
had not come up with someone to hire as an engraver.
Work on the disme went ahead
anyway. The dies may have been engraved by Robert Birch and
Adam Eckfeldt, according to A Guide Book of United States
Coins, which also says the coins were probably struck in July
1792 or a little later, around the same time as the first
half dismes. Eckfeldt may
The dismes were struck in
the cellar of a Philadelphia home owned by John Harper, a
saw maker who happened to have a screw press. It’s likely
that George Washington, Jefferson and other dignitaries witnessed
the first strikes.
Apparently the first dismes
never circulated. They are usually classified as patterns.
Today only a few silver 1792
dismes and slightly more than a dozen struck in copper are
known. In 1998 a copper 1792 disme formerly in the John W.
Garrett collection was graded by the Professional Grading
Service Specimen-65. The last time it was offered for sale
it was priced at $1.2 million.
1796 Dime
When the Mint opened in 1793,
it concentrated on striking cents and half cents. The dime
did not go into regular production until 1796.
Legend has it that famed portrait
artist Gilbert Stuart sketched the Draped Bust Liberty obverse,
using Philadelphia socialite Anne Willing as his model. But
there is no real proof of the story. Stuart’s supposed
connection with the design was publicized in an article in
the American Journal of Numismatics in 1887.
Robert Scot engraved the obverse
and possibly the small-eagle reverse. Sometimes the reverse
is credited to engraver John Eckstein.
Measuring 19mm in diameter,
the first dimes were larger than today’s dime, but thinner.
The Philadelphia Mint reportedly turned out only 22,135 examples
in 1796, so most people never even had the chance to see one.
Foreign coins were most widely used in the United States until
the mid -800s.
Despite the limited production
run, the Mint used six pair of dies to strike 1796 dimes.
It was an indication of the problems that plagued the early
Mint and led many critics to call for its elimination. Some
politicians wanted a private contractor to strike the nation’s
coins.
Coin Prices lists the 1796
Draped Bust dime at $1,300 in Good-4, which makes me wish
I had not passed on an About Good piece priced at only $125
years ago. Long after they went out of production, early dimes
were sometimes used to make women’s bracelets. This
explains why Draped Bust dimes are sometimes found holed.
Damaged coins are usually regarded as space fillers, but a
1796 dime is desirable in any state of preservation.
At the other end of the grading
scale, an MS-60 1796 dime is valued at $12,000. Considering
the coin’s low mintage and the fact it is over 200 years
old, I would have expected the price to be much higher. The
estate of Col. E.H.R. Green, who died in the 1930s, included
a hoard of uncirculated 1796 dimes.
Draped Bust dimes remained
in production until 1807, but they were not struck every year.
The fledgling eagle reverse gave way to a heraldic eagle design
in 1798, based on the Great Seal of the United States.
Oddly, there was no indication
of face value on the first dimes. The inscription “10C.”
was not added to the reverse until 1809, and not until 1837
did “One Dime” appear on the coin.
1838-O
Dime
The Philadelphia Mint had
a hard time keeping up with the demand for coins. The first
branch mint, in New Orleans, was authorized in 1835. It was
needed because of “the great importation of gold and
silver into New Orleans and the great risk and expense incurred
by sending on all the bullion form the South to be coined
at Philadelphia,” said Sen. George A. Waggaman.
J.L. Riddell, the Mint’s
coiner, described operations at New Orleans: “The planchets,
with wax or tallow still adherent, are…heated to a dull
redness in iron recipients placed in the annealing furnace,
and poured, hot as they are, into a tub of diluted sulphuric
acid, by which means all impurities are removed from their
surfaces, the alloyed copper superficially dissolved away,
and the clear, beautiful, dead white appearance of pure unburnished
silver is elicited.
“Adhering acid is washed
away in water, and adhering water dried away by hot mahogany
sawdust, in an ingenious rotating apparatus heated by steam,
invented by the present coiner.
“The dies are prepared
for this Mint in Philadelphia. The letter ‘O’
placed usually under the eagle, is intended to designate the
coinage at New Orleans.…
“There are four presses
in the coining room, forming a series in respect to size and
strength, adapted to the stamping of the various coins, from
the half dime to the dollar… Each operating press requires
a man to watch it, to oil the joints occasionally, and to
keep a vertical brass tube supplied with the blanks or planchets
to be coined. The untiring press goes on, seizing with iron
fingers from the tube a planchet of its own accord, carefully
adjusting it to the retracted dies, squeezing it with a degree
of force sublime to contemplate, and then quietly and safely
depositing it in the box placed to receive it.
“From 80 to 150 pieces,
dependent on the size, are thus coined in one minute’s
time. The obverse, reverse, and indented work upon the edge
are all completed at a single effort of the press.”
The New Orleans Mint struck
its first dimes, distinguished by an “O” mintmark
on the reverse, in 1838. Some 20 1838-O dimes may have been
placed in the cornerstone of the New American Theatre in New
Orleans.
New Orleans was suffering
through hard times when the coins were struck. In August 1838
the mayor told the municipal council the city owed banks more
than $1.2 million and was unable to make the payments. City
land was mortgaged to the banks to meet routine expenses,
and an agent was sent to New York to raise money.
The Seated Liberty design
by Christian Gobrecht first appeared on the dime the previous
year. Originally there was no border of 13 stars on the obverse.
The stars were added in 1838, but not on dimes struck at the
New Orleans Mint, which waited another year to revise the
design.
The New Orleans Mint struck
slightly more than 400,000 dimes in 1838. A Very Good-8 survivor
is valued at $60, according to Coin Prices. There is also
an 1839-O dime variety with the reverse of 1838-O. It was
struck from rusty dies and has a bumpy surface on the reverse.
A VG-8 example is valued at $225.
The real significance of the
1838-O dime is that it helped make the dime a national coin,
not one whose use was limited just to the East. Before the
New Orleans Mint opened, dimes were rarely seen in New Orleans
or anywhere west. The situation began to change with the introduction
of New Orleans dimes and really picked up steam when the San
Francisco Mint went into operation in the 1850s and began
churning out Seated Liberty dimes.
The Carson City Mint opened
in the 1870s and, on a smaller scale than San Francisco, did
its part to insure the dime’s success in the West. If
the New Orleans Mint had fizzled, however, and the 1838-O
dime had never been struck, the story might have had a different
ending.
1916
Dime
The dime reached an artistic
high point with the Mercury dime, released in late October
1916. Never before or since has there been so much publicity
surrounding the debut of a new dime design.
It started when the Treasury
Department announced a competition for new silver coin designs
in December 1915. Newspapers predicted great things for the
forthcoming dime, quarter and half dollar. Stories told of
what was involved in preparing a new design, the requirements
it had to meet and the amount of time and work that was involved.
More newspaper coverage followed
when the winners were unveiled, including sculptor Adolph
Weinman’s Mercury dime. People could hardly wait to
get the coins in their hands.
The Washington Post jumped
the gun and reported the first examples were released July
1, 1916, as planned. But this was not the case at all. Soon
came reports of problem after problem the Mint was having
preparing the designs for full-scale production. By the time
the Mercury dime went into circulation, it was nearly four
months late. The new quarter and half dollar took even longer
to arrive.
However, they were well worth
the wait, especially the dime. Critics described it as “quite
an improvement over the old issue,” “a silvern
beauty,” “far more beautiful than any since the
Draped Bust issue.”
If the dime’s symbolism
went unrecognized by the public, no one seemed to care very
much. Weinman himself wrote a letter to The Numismatist explaining
that the Mercury dime symbolized freedom of thought. To most
people, however, the image represented not Liberty but Mercury,
the speedy messenger of the gods in mythology. Weinman’s
dime will forever be known as the Mercury dime, whether the
label is accurate or not.
The symbolism on the dime’s
reverse also broke new ground. There was no eagle, no wreath.
Instead a bundle of rods around an ax dominated the reverse.
The fasces supposedly symbolized unity and authority. At least
that was the case in ancient times.
But when Woodrow Wilson was
in the White House and the United States had not yet gone
to war, no one seemed to know what to make of the dime’s
reverse. Some people thought it pictured a golf bag and clubs,
so they called it the “golf dime” for a while.
Because production of Mercury
dimes began so late in the year, people might have expected
the 1916-dated dimes to be rarities. Texas dealer B. Max Mehl,
and Treasury officials, sent out word this would not be the
case, and that there would be more than enough new dimes to
go around.
The information, however,
was not entirely accurate. At the Denver Mint, only 264,000
1916-dated Mercury dimes were struck. There were few coin
collectors in the West, so the new dimes slipped into circulation
and not many uncirculated examples were set aside. In MS-65,
the 1916-D dime is now valued at $25,000, according to Coin
Prices.
But the 1916-D was an exception.
Coin Prices lists a Mint State-65 1916 at $90 and an Extremely
Fine-40 example at only $10.
Dime mintages were usually
high during the Mercury dime’s long run, except for
an occasional lapse during a recession or depression. A dime
could still buy many different items, including candy bars,
cigars, soda pop and almost anything in a five-and-dime store.
In addition, dimes were probably
the most popular coin for charitable donations. The March
of Dimes helped push dime mintages to record levels in the
1930s and 1940s. But dimes were sent to all sorts of other
causes and organizations, too, ranging from the Ku Klux Klan
to the Townsend Plan, an old-age pension plan proposed in
1934 by Dr. Francis E. Townsend.
Through it all, the Mercury
dime was the least troublesome of the silver coins introduced
in 1916. The design held up well after decades in circulation,
which is more than can be said for the Standing Liberty quarter,
often seen with the date worn off. Mercury dimes were also
easier to strike than the other denominations. On Walking
Liberty half dollars, for example, so much of the detail was
sometimes missing that it is difficult to tell a mint state
example from one grading EF or About Uncirculated.
Although the Mercury dime was as beautiful as it was practical,
in a way it became a casualty of World War II. When Italian
dictator Benito Mussolini adopted the fasces as a symbol of
fascism, it was too much to bear for many Americans. The design
was no longer considered appropriate for the dime.
For a while it looked as if
Benjamin Franklin would replace “Mercury”—the
Winged Liberty Head—on the dime. But when Franklin Roosevelt
died in April 1945, public sentiment, and Roosevelt’s
association with the March of Dimes, made him the logical
choice to be honored on the coin. The Roosevelt dime made
its debut in 1946, but the durable Mercury dimes lingered
in circulation until the 1960s.
1965
Dime
By the mid-1960s the rising
price of silver—and the dwindling national stockpile—forced
the Mint to consider alternative metals for the dime, quarter
and half dollar. Many different materials were considered
and tested in an effort to find something that would be compatible
with the current coins and work in vending machines without
requiring expensive modifications.
Private companies were an
important part of the process. The Medallic Art Co. and the
Franklin Mint struck experimental dimes in a nickel alloy,
using designs engraved by Gilroy Roberts. The obverse depicted
International Nickel Co. executive Paul D. Merica. The reverse
pictured INCO’s Merica Laboratory.
For the dime and quarter,
government officials and lawmakers eventually decided on a
composition consisting of outer layers of copper-nickel bonded
to a pure copper core. The half dollar would also have a clad
composition but would retain some silver content for a few
more years.
It was a monumental change
to the coinage system, probably the most significant since
the 1790s. Getting it right took time. The first clad coins
were not released until late in 1965.
“It will be some time
before John Q. Public receives a specimen of America’s
new coins,” the September 1965 issue of Coins said.
“Treasury Department will not release the coins for
another year or more. The coins will be stockpiled until billions
have been struck and nationwide release can be effected overnight.
“Officially the government
reasoning is that collectors will take all the new coins out
of circulation as soon as they are released, but unofficially,
Gresham’s law, the theory that bad money drives out
good, has had a great deal of influence on the government’s
decision to stockpile the coins first.”
Production of clad coins began
in late August 1965, but the Mint did not start making clad
dimes until December. The quarter was the first of the clad
coins to be released. The December 1965 issue described the
appearance of the clad quarter, but the same comments would
apply to the dime. “Beyond the new date, you’ll
find the…faintly bluish cast of a bright, new nickel.…
And of course there will always be that additional distinguishing
mark—the copper-brown ring around the coin’s edge.
The ham in the sandwich.”
In a Rose Garden signing ceremony
for the Coinage Act of 1965, President Lyndon Johnson claimed
silver coins would remain in circulation alongside the new
clad coins. To discourage hoarding of silver coins, he warned
that the government would use its stockpile of silver to keep
the market price in line with the face value of the coins.
Date-freeze legislation also
was part of the strategy. The Mint continued to strike 1964-dated
silver coins as late as 1966, which explains the enormous
mintages recorded for 1964, including a combined total of
more than 2 billion dimes from the Philadelphia and Denver
mints.
The date-freeze policy was
still in effect in 1965 and beyond. More than 1.6 billion
1965-dated dimes were struck. Today an MS-65 1965 dime is
valued at a dollar.
The last silver dimes were
struck in February 1966 and dated 1964. The first clad dimes
were released in March 1966.
Clad coins went over surprisingly
well, even if they did drive silver coins out of circulation
after a few years. Still, there were a few problems. Many
people complained about the flat appearance of clad dimes
compared to the higher relief of the silver version. It was
said the copper caused the flatness in the coins. Eventually,
everyone seemed to get used to it.
The Roosevelt dime is now
the longest-running U.S. coin design with its original obverse
and reverse. The Lincoln cent obverse goes back to 1909, but
the reverse dates to 1959. Introduced in 1938, the Jefferson
nickel recently received a new obverse portrait. The Monticello
reverse has also been modified.
The Washington quarter, too,
no longer resembles the original from 1932. Other denominations
do not even come close to the dime design’s longevity.
More clad Roosevelt dimes have been minted than all previous
dimes combined.
An enduring design. A durable
composition. And a few milestone dimes along the way that
made it a vital part of the monetary system. It helps explain
why the dime is still going strong more than two centuries
after the first dimes were struck in the basement of a Philadelphia
home—and why it’s likely to remain in production
for many more decades to come.
