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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;kaparthy, post: 1024217, member: 57463&quot;]When I first started collecting, I settled on Mercury Dimes for several reasons.&nbsp; My username has been Mercury since 1985, first on a DEC VAX 11/70, and now mercury49at torchlake.com.&nbsp; Mercury was the messenger of the gods and my first career was in transportation.&nbsp; Mercury was also the patron of merchants and thieves -- it can be so hard to tell them apart sometimes.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>For a beginning collector, the series was achievable.&nbsp; Even the one key, the 1916-D is easy to find in any grade you want: all you need is the money.&nbsp; The middle of the series is harder: the lower mintages, the Ds and Ss are not that often set aside and not all dealers have desirable examples on hand.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>The <i>Complete Guide to Mercury Dimes</i> written by David Lange provided authoritative nformation about the series.&nbsp; For me, this was critical.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>I wrote <a href="http://www.coin-newbies.com/articles/mercury.html" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.coin-newbies.com/articles/mercury.html" rel="nofollow">this piece</a> first for Lloyd Lim&#039;s Numismatica/Telesphere and then re-wrote it for Coin Newbies.&nbsp; I learned to grade the coin rapidly from the reverse.&nbsp; The bands, diagonals and sticks -- I call them &quot;rods&quot; but the graders all say &quot;sticks&quot; -- make it easy.&nbsp; I found the mass of swirly curls hard to parse.&nbsp; When I said that online (rec.collecting.coins) another Michigan collector replied that it is pretty easy once you know how.&nbsp; Together we wrote an article about grading Mercury Dimes for <i>Winning Ways </i>magazine of Women in Numismatics.</p><p><br /></p><p>In 2001, working on a project in Dallas, I had a couple of opportunities to visit Heritage.&nbsp; Though I missed the sale itself, they had a nice poster of the finest set of Mercury Dimes ever assembled.&nbsp; It was splendid.</p><p><br /></p><p>My own Whitman was built pretty much from bags of circs.&nbsp; A local dealer -- Liberty in Lansing, Michigan -- let me come in a few times and work through their bulk.&nbsp; Eventually, I bought the ones I could not find, or could not find in grade.&nbsp; The 21-D and 21-S, of course, but it was interesting to see the holes left by random chance for coins whose mintages spoke otherwise.&nbsp; Similarly, nominal rarities did show up, as well, which is the fun in searching, of course.</p><p><br /></p><p>All in all, the series has a lot to commend it.</p><p><br /></p><p>I never did get the 16-D, though.&nbsp; With all the others in Fine or above, a Good 16-D was not enough.</p><p><br /></p><p>Also, I bought several 16-Ps in Unc.&nbsp; If you know the series and get used to looking at it, you realize that the fresher hubs created sharper dies from which detailed coins were struck.&nbsp; Mercury Dimes of World War II can have Mint bloom and Mint luster and Full Split Bands and all that, but compared to a 16, once you know, they look mushy.</p><p>If you have to have &quot;just one&quot; get a Mint State 16-P: it is affordable and satisfying.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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