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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;kaparthy, post: 19181, member: 57463&quot;]The &quot;bands&quot; are on the reverse.&nbsp; they are the horizontal ribbons around the middle of the bundle of rods with ax, called a &quot;fasces.&quot;&nbsp; There are really TWO bands around the middle, and on really nice Mercury Dimes, you can see them separated.&nbsp; (The bands at the very top and bottom are not the ones under discussion.)</p><p><br /></p><p>The central bands on the reverse are a difficult feature because as the dies wear, this little detail disappears. Also, the center of the reverse competes with the center of the obverse for metal.&nbsp; Also, in the early years of production, the hubs from which dies are made are &quot;fresh.&quot;&nbsp; As more and more and more dies are made from these hubs, they wear out.&nbsp; As America came out of the Depression and got into World War II, hundreds of millions of Mercury Dimes were knocked out.&nbsp; Finding them with full mint luster is not so hard.&nbsp; Finding them with the full details of 1916 is much harder.</p><p><br /></p><p>As a consequence, FB (Full Band) and FSB (Full SPLIT Bands) designate truly choice examples, regardless of the state of wear.&nbsp; My preference in Mercury Dimes is always for the early years.</p><p><br /></p><p>As for what a &quot;low&quot; population might be, even the 1916-D&nbsp; runs over a quarter million examples.&nbsp; In order to buy one, all you need is money.&nbsp; The more money you have, the higher the grade.&nbsp; It is not a challenge.&nbsp; On the other hand, if you collect almost anything other than US Mint products, you can easily acquire truly rare, even unique, museum quality examples.&nbsp; (See Frank Robinson&#039;s book, CONFESSIONS OF A NUMISMATIC FANATIC.)&nbsp; The point is that you take a 38-S or 39-D Mercury Dime and you have&nbsp; &quot;e pluribus unum&quot;: one out of many, or about one out of 10 million.</p><p><br /></p><p>Michael</p><p>&quot;rare avis&quot;[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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