I've decided to start a set of low grade Mercury Dimes since most of them can be found for just a few dollars. My question is, what do you guys do about the 1916-D? Leave that hole empty? Find a copy? Save up the large sum (To me anyway) of money? Another question, if you do save up the money, is it a really stupid idea to buy one that is not slabbed. I'm thinkin it probably is Thanks.
It is the only empty hole in my book. Do I want it? Yes. Can I afford it..... well, that is another question. And what grade would I settle for. I don't want an AG or G, therefore I will probably be waiting a long, long time before I even think about getting one. Good luck. I just bought a nice 1941 unc today. Not full bands, but still a nice unc example for a decent price.
I just started up on my merc collection too If I had a copy I'd eventually want to replace it. It would be more like a empty slot with a seat warmer in it, but I cant afford it either
If you work hard and save for several years, and you end up with the big (for you) chunk of money, why would you want to take a chance of flushing it down the drain by buying a raw coin? Buy slabbed. You can then crack it out if you want, but you'll know that you've got the real thing.
Do not under any circumstances buy a raw 1916-D Mercury Dime. It is one of the most counterfeited US coins. If you want to fill the hole, you should buy a copy/replica. If you want to fill it for real, buy a PCGS or NGC slabbed coin and copy the insert from the slab and paste it over the hole. One more suggestion. I don't know what your budget is but I think you should make it two sets. Low grade (circulated) from 1916-1931 and BU from 1934-1945. The Mercs after 1934 are all affordable (each less than $25) for every date in Mint State condition. It might take you longer to complete the set this way, but you will have a much nicer set in the end. Just a thought. I am doing the same thing with my intercept shield Mercury Dime set. I am looking for XF-MS62 for 1916-1931 and GEM BU FSB for 1934-1945. The set is coming along nicely and looks pretty good so far.
I was going o do something like that. I'm gona make a low grade set 1st then orver time replace everything with better ones, and end up with 2 sets
I put together a nice set of these years ago but never filled the 16-D slot. At the time I could buy several MPL's for the same money. Many different types of sets have a coin or two that can rock a budget. An open slot or two is fine with me because I had a great time putting it together. It was fun.
I think you should start with keys first. Get those 5 out of the way and the rest are smooth sailing. I've owned five 1916 D's. I now have 2. Both AG 3 ANACS. I had to sell my VF but that's another story. Once I completed my average circ. set I decided to do an AU/BU set.Once I got that as far as I could I went after FSB's.I'm 45/77 not counting overdates and varieties. I have a dealer that works with his cutomers. He'll do layawys. Ask your local dealer if he does this kind of deal. Once you make a down payment on a 16D or a 42/41 you'll be surprised how fast you'll find extra money to get that key paid for so you can have it in your hand. After that start picking 'em off 1 at a time. And as for slabbed or raw ? Learn the diagnotics of those keys and you'll know when it's authentic or not. Find a good dealer, there are alot of them that are honest and wouldn't sell a fake. Never buy a raw 16D on the Bay though, the majority of them are altered and easy to tell. Good Luck and keep us posted... John http://cointalk.org/showthread.php?t=22229&page=2
Maybe this will help....Not counting varieties, there are 77 coins in the set. If you average $9.00 per coin you'll spend virtually the same amount by purchasing one 16 d.......76 x $9.00 = $684.....You should be able to find an AG 16 d for 625-675.
I completed my Mercury Dime set (see my photo album in my profile) except for the 42/41 overdates. Mine are all in circulated grades because thats what I like. My advice would be to buy the keys and semi keys first. Get them out of the way then its smooth sailing from there. I did that with most of the sets that I started. Key and semi key dates will continue to rise in value so if you wait too long that 600 dollar coin may be 800. There's always a demand for key dates. The layaway idea sounds good too, I'd ask your dealer if he offers it, this way if the price of the 16-d goes up in the amount of time it takes you to pay for it in full, you're still paying the original purchase price, not what it may cost you to save up and buy it outright within 6 months or so.
Adam, if you really want to complete the set, I'd strive to save up the money. However, I would spend a little, save a little, spend a little, save a little... I find that if I try to just save money and never buy anything, I end up getting frustrated. Also, I am absolutely not a fan of copies, so I personally wouldn't go that route. What's the point? To me, copies are fake coins, not worth collecting.
I started a Merc set a couple years back, but found I had walked right into a hot market for them. So I stopped and switched to a different issue. But before I made that switch I bought three of the keys because I knew if I ever got back to the Mercs, they would be considerably more expensive. I bought a: - 1916-D (PCGS F-12) - 1942/1 (ANACS AU-55) - 1942/1-D (ANACS EF-45) In the future I no longer have to worry about those coins. That's why the rule-of-thumb is get the keys/semi-keys first. Another example of "striking while the iron is hot" is my 1877 IHC. When I first started looking I wanted a MS-63. It would have cost about $3500-4000. But I wasn't paying close attention. About a year after I started looking the MS-63 had close to doubled in price. I ended up with an XF-45 for almost the same price as I would originally have paid for the MS-63. Keys and semi-keys can often get away from you if you don't act quickly. Buy the best you can afford, even if you have to stretch a bit.
I'm currently working on the Merc set in EF/AU. I've been keeping an eye out for the keys, specially the 16 D but so far I've been disapointed. All the 16 D I've come across, although graded G6 their rims are heavily worn to more than half of the letters.
Haven't been using this web site since I have to spend so much time scrolling back and forth. Only web site like that. Thought I'd try it one more time since the Mercury Dime is my favorite coin or at least one of them. Back to your questions about the Mercury Dimes and since I have approximately 3,000 of them or more. Presently 10 completed albums and contimplating on an 11th and 12th set. Here is some things to ponder about that collection. First of all note the mintages on the 31S and 31D. In fact the 31D is the 4th lowest mintage in that collection and yet very low priced even in higher grades. Also, note that any coin with a mintage in the one million minted range will become difficult to find soon enough with our population at 300,000,000 in the USA. If you can find any of the 26S, 31D, 31S dates if I were you I'd grab them now. Depending on what type of album you are using, some don't have a slot for the 45 micro S. Some do not have slots for the 42/41 and/or the 42D/41. If you use a Whitman Classic Album you could acquire blank pages and the binder will hold two sets of Dimes. Something I do but most don't. Whitman also sells Gold press on numbers and letters so you can title those blank pages. With that system you could provide slots for anything you wanted. You may note that although the 45 micro S is popular, many of the other dates also have large and small mint marks. A lot more than listed in the Red Book. Here is an oddity that is seldom mentioned about the Mercury Dimes. If you place them in an album or in 2x2's and the fronts are all nicely verticle and you turn them over, probably 1/4 of them will have a slight reverse rotation. Out of all my 3,000 I find that about 1/4 are that way. What is odd is that in the back of the Red Book for error types there is no mention of a rotated reverse on any coins. And some are rotated as much as 90 degrees. Most are only slightly rotated. You may want to try flea markets for those also. At one flea market there used to be a person that sold coins. He would just dump them in a bin. He had little knowledge of any value. All coins were $1 and the more you bought, the cheaper they were. So far I've purchased almost a thousand from him and some were the 42/41, 26S, 31D and many, many others. I usually paid about $0.90 each since I would buy as many as he had. Her is the sad part. I showed him the Red Book and a copy of the Numismatic News. His prices are now outrageous.
tcore, I agree about the copy. The real thing is just so darn expensive though. I also agree with the save a little spend a little idea. There is no way I could wait untill I had $1,000 to drop on one coin. I'd get bored. Just Carl, I just read an article somewhere (CoinWorld I think) about the rotation on Mercury dimes. Some of them are pretty extreme. Thanks everyone for the advice.
I've put together several sets of Mercs and over the years have sold a few sets. I am still putting together another couple of sets. Not once did I have or even want the 16-D. Not once when I sold a set did the buyer care about the 16-D. That coin is way too much money. The ones I have seen for $650 to $800 are junk. You can do far more intelligent things with $650.
I'm a little confused. How is a rare coin (264,000 minted) in any condition considered junk ? All I can say is that I have 2 16D's left and they may be AG3's but they sure as hell are not junk.
To answer that, one man's junk is another man's treasure. What I mean more clearly is- I will not spend $650 to $800 on a coin that has worn rims and letters. Granted the 16-D is indeed a rare coin. That's not the point. For my 6 or 8 hundred bucks I would buy slabbed gold.
