Completing this Mercury Head Dime collection worth trying?

I say go for it!

 

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take a chance but buy it certified. Based on you collection, what specific grade are you pursuing? I would guess something between AG and VG depending on your budget.

 

For a circulated set like that, I don't see the harm in buying slabbed "details" AG-VG and cracking it out. At least you know it's legit.

 

I'll never get a 1916 D Merc because, frankly, I don't want one. It is not rare enough to justify the cost.

 

It's just that having one empty hole in the album kind of makes you want to finish the set. I'm a patient man and when the right one comes along, at the right time, I pick it up. There are four coin shops in town and all four will only deal with certified 16-ds, because of the HUGE number of counterfeits out there.

Who would of thought that one little dime could be so important?

 

Cool. I got a 1921 as part of a lot of 16 mercs on ebay for around $20. Did well!

 

Nice cherrypick!

(Was it really a cherrypick though? Or just blind luck?)

 

I'm in no hurry, I'll wait until the price of a 1916-d makes sense

 

Yes. For the price of a 1916-D I can buy an actually rare coin.

 

Yes, I saw it in the pictures of the lot. The seller was toting the 1916S and 1918 as the better coins in the lot, so I think most people did not notice the 21 in there.

 

I got both of my 21's in change from a Coke machine at the Bethesda Naval Hospital in 1965. I believe that my parents found the 16D in the NYC subway change sometime in the 50's.

 

If I'm patient enough it might end up in the take a penny leave a penny dish somewhere, or a coinstar that wouldn't accept it, or would it?

 

You may find this hard to believe, I know I would, but yesterday I stopped by one of the local coin shops to buy some junk silver to take advantage of the slight drop in Silver prices. I bought a troy pound of mixed coins. When I when through them today, I found a 1921 D Mercury dime (G-VG) in the mix of coins, which as you know is the second hardest Mercury to find!

 

Just my opinion, of course, but I don't think the set is worth completing. I would strip out the few dates with some premium (e.g., the 1921s) and treat the rest as bullion. Think about what you would have if you did complete it: a set that when you try to sell it would be worth the wholesale value of the few better dates plus a lot of bullion coins. Again, just my opinion.

 

Well I'm no longer Bill the Cat, My grandson drew a picture of me and I thought it would make a great Avatar.

 

Sorry! I checked my Mercury Dimes to see if I had any you are looking for. Nope. I tried.

 

Any coin, other than the early Morgan or later Peace Dollar, minted in 1921 is scarce, the mint made as many of the silver dollars as they could, when the realized that the 260,000 Morgan Dollars they melted for England didn't give them enough to redeem the Silver Certificates out there in circulation.

As a side note George Morgan was the Chief Engraver in 1921, and he was to make the Morgan Dollars until they settled all the problems with the new Peace Dollar. All the Hubs and Dies had been destroyed, so he had to make them from scratch. Not bad for a guy in his seventies! He didn't have the right size mint punch for a silver dollar, so the word is he used one from a quarter or half which would explain why the mintmark is so small on them. Put a 1921 next to an earlier Morgan and you can see he did a pretty good job of duplicating the earlier ones.

 

I too have been on the wire about finishing my Mercury set. It was completed (except the 16d) back in the 1960's - and having that empty hole sure is irritating. But there are so many higher rarity coins that I would like to acquire .....

 

Financially, this is exactly why I expect set collecting to become less popular in the future, even in better grades that discussed here. Most of the coins are dead money and an increasingly poorer population and collector base will both be less willing and able to afford it.

I also expect the "key" dates such as the 16-d, 21 and 21-d to lose value because they are actually common and not remotely competitive versus other coins which are overwhelmingly viewed as "better" by most collectors.

When I checked the prices of the 21 and 21-d for this topic, one of them recently sold on Heritage for $493 in XF-40 or XF-45 in an NGC or PCGS holder. It's a "bargain" versus a 16-d and other similar "key" dates but otherwise a poor numismatic value versus practically everything else. It's a coin in "no man's land" which almost certainly has almost no demand outside of Mercury dime set collections. It isn't particularly attractive because of it's grade, doesn't even have the stature of the 16-d and anyone who wants a really nice Mercury dime can buy a common date MS-66 FB for about 10% of the price. Essentially the same comments apply to the 16-d except that most collectors, not knowing any better, still think it is "rare".

 

It is a nice find but isn't that hard to believe because the coin is almost certainly not remotely as scarce as the consensus seems to believe.

An earlier reply here provided the PCGS Coin Facts estimates. As I tried to explain, there isn't really any reason to believe their accuracy. These numbers imply a survival rate of about .15% and .35% for two coins struck approximately 15 years before folder collecting was introduced and shortly after became the most widespread form of collecting. Does that remotely make any sense? The estimates included in my Gilboy reference aren't precise but these numbers are apparently lower than some of the Mexico (1732-1771) and Peru (1752-1772) pillar 1/2R and 1R I collect. If the 16-d has a survival rate of about 4% with 10,000, I can see why the survival rate is higher but not remotely that much.