Mercury Head Dimes

I apologize in advance for any inaccurate statements or terminology. I'm not a coin collector myself

My boyfriend recently inherited his uncles coin collection which includes, among other things, a complete set of Mercury Head dimes (including the various mint locations per year like D and S etc). They range in quality, though I would say the worst of them is in fair condition.

Is there any value in this set, and if so how would we go about getting it appraised? We live in SW Ohio, and looking in the yellow pages for coin appraisers netted us nothing but pawn shops, which doesn't strike me as the best place to be having something appraised. Any advice is much appreciated!

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

You are right about the pawn shops. I would steer clear of them. If you can't find a coin shop near you, I would do some research on the internet. Do as much homework as you can before selling them. There could be some very valuable coins in that collection.

 

*blushes*

I probably should have posted this in the "what's it worth" forum. Sorry about that! There is more in the collection I want to get an opinion on, but I'm at work at the moment. I'll post the rest of the collection in the other forum later

 

looksbothways:
Welcome, and it may help you to post some pictures.
Also, I agree, stay away from the pawn shops, they will low ball the values.
Good luck.

 

Howdy,

I concur about the pawn shops. It might be worth your while to drive to either Cinci or Dayton and make a day of it. They should both have several coin dealers listed in the yellow pages.

While there are many merc's that could be worth serious money in very good condition, the big 3 are the 1916-D, followed by the 1921 and 1921-D.

If you have any of these 3 be careful with them.

good luck,

rono

 

The way I value my coins is Ebay. I look for completed auctions with the same or similiar items to what I have.

 

I agree with Rono and the rest of the members. You should go out and buy youself a Coin Prices Magazine or a similar guide and familiarize yourself with the values of each coin, especially the three big key dates if you have them and any overdates if they happen to be included in the set. Be very careful who you go to. If you do go to a dealer make sure its a reputable one whos been around for a while or you can check to see if there are any decent size coin shows in your area to take them to. Dealers at coin shows are always looking to buy, especially the key dates. If you want to sell the entire set all at once dont let them cherry pick through and only take what they want. The set is worth more complete than in part. If you sell the keys then try to sell the rest it'll be much harder to get rid of. Im only telling you this from my experience with selling partial sets. Good luck and be very cautious.

 

The set includes all three of those. They're in a collector book, I believe it's a Whitman book, and as best we can tell all slots are filled with the appropriate coin. We haven't removed any of the dimes, nor handled them, but the book allows you to see front and back so we were able to verify the mint marks for the D and S on various years.

I'll have more detailed information when I get home. I'm not sure if we have any of the "2 over 1" I've been reading about, since that wasn't something I was looking for when I first looked at them.

 

Wow, if you have a 1916-D that is great, the value of that one is probably worth more than the rest of the set together. I would get it out of the book without getting my fingers on it and have it authenticated.

 

Thats a great idea that I very strongly agree with.

 

Hi,

For a collection like that you are probably better off appraising it yourself as it it isn't really that hard. You can look up the coin prices and go coin by coin, it takes time but it is better than going to a dealer as he won't take the time to do it execpt for the rarest few coins.

Just from what you said though I would guess the value starts at about $3000 and goes higher from there depending on the grades of the coins. The value could be much higher depending on individual coins.

 

Welcome to the forum!
Look in the phone book for Coin Dealer---not appraisers as that might work..
As its been said---the 1916-D and 1921-P and D are the harder to find dates---but they are also the dates that the most fakes pop up from--so don't get your hopes up---while I hope that they are real that isn't set in stone.
If you can post some good clear photos of the 3 coins listed above---you can pop the coins out of the folder and not cause any problems---do NOT clean any of the coins as that would kill the value.
Hold the coins by the rims (edge) when holding them---if you can get good photos of the mintmarks we might be able to tell you if they are real or fake.
IF they real then you would need to send them to a grading company---NGC/PCGS/ANACS/ICG
They will charge you around $25-$35 per coin to grade them and slab them but in the case that they are real and you want to sell them you will get much more if they are graded and slabbed by one of these companies.

But before we get too far---lets go back and see if you can get some photos!
I know a few dealers from OH and if you want to PM me what town you live near I may be able to see if any of the guys I know are near.

Speedy

 

I forgot: NEVER CLEAN YOUR COINS!

That's all.

 

Not sure but you don't sound like your going to sell them so in that case welcome to the world of coin collecting. Now if those Mercury Dimes are in a Whitman Album as you indicated you may also have a slot for a 1942 over 1941. In the later albums there is also a slot for the 42D/41. At a recent coin show here in Illinois I saw a set possibly like the one you discribe for $8,000. However, if many of those coins are in top condition you may far exceed that. You may want to just check out the price guide in the PCGS web site for an example of prices. Remember those are the types of prices a dealer would sell for and not what they would buy from you. You may also want to check out all the coins for errors. Error are becoming a really big thing around here lately. Now if you look at the reverse pages of that Mercury Dime Album you may notice many of the coins appear to be on a slant. Mercury Dimes are notorious for that. Some dealers pay more and some less for that feature.
The best thing is to check out the Walmart web site for books and order a Red Book on coins. It's cheap, outdated for prices, but has great information.

 

Ok now that I'm home, here is some further information. For all my comments, I'm assuming the coins are not counterfeit. I'm aware they need to be authenticated, but just going on the assumption that they're not fake, here is my very newbie estimate of grade for the rare ones going on the chart located at http://coins.about.com/od/coingrading/f/sheldon_scale.htm .

1916D - VG-8/F-12 the D mint mark is clearly visible, so barring counterfeit it is indeed a 1916D
1921 - F-12
1921D - F-12
1942 2 over 1 - F-12, maybe a little higher. You can see the mark of the one just on the left open edge of the two.

The book has 78 coins in total, all in their appropriate spots. All D and S mint marks are present and readable, all years are present and readable. All coins have varying degrees of detail in the wings and pillar on the back, but none are worn to the point that the outline is smoothed. There are a couple coins where the E Pluribus Unum seems slightly worn/faded, but otherwise all text is readable.

 

You have those 4 coins??

Well then you have the most collectable merc dimes there is to collect. That 16-D is probably worth the most out of the bunch but all 4 are key.

Now it's time to have them authenticated and possibly graded/slabbed by a third party grading company.

 

Aye, all four of those coins are in this collection.

 

Post some clear photos of the coin and maybe we can help you in the grading and also authenticated part---while it is suggest that you get them looked at by experts in hand sometimes we can save you money if the coins are fakes planly.

Speedy

 

I don't have a digital camera, so I'm working on how I'd get photographs. Would it be ok to scan them on the flatbed scanner at work? If that's ok, should I leave them in their album or take them out?

 

Scans will be fine--
You can take them out---hold them by the rim---take the folder to a soft place--such as a bed---put your finger on the other side of the folder under the coin and softly push up----you might let the folder bend just a tad--if the coin comes out then great---if it doesn't leave it alone.
Since you have said that the coins are circulated you aren't going to get fingerprints if you slip and put a finger on the coin and not on the rim (of edge) but its just best to always use that way of holding a coin.

Speedy