But starting in 1904, the mint hired professional artists at the behest of Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt, the 26 th US President. He succeeded his father, William Barber, who was the Chief Mint Engraver from 1869 to 1879. Initially, US currency was designed by in-house Mint Engravers, and that Barber Dime was designed by Charles Barber, who served from 1879 to 1917. Conservative Chief Engravers vs Aesthetic Artistic Sculptors

The Mercury Dime was the 5 th design in the series after Draped Bust (1796-1807), Capped Bust (1809 to 1837), Seated Liberty (1837 to 1891), and Barber ( 1892 to 1916). Similarly, a penny is listed as One Cent, a quarter (25 cents) as Quarter Dollar, and 50c-coins say Half Dollar, so the dime is the only coin whose nickname appears as the official name behind the coin. the nickel says Five Cents), but the dime says One Dime. Smaller coins have their denomination listed in cents (e.g. They were one-tenth the value and weight of a silver dollar, though they didn’t make circulation dimes until 1796.

For reference, the earliest dime was called a disme (silent ‘s’).ĭisme is an Old French word that means tithe or tenth, and that silent ‘s’ was eventually dropped. By 1946, we had switched to the Roosevelt Dime that we still use today. This coin was minted from 1916 to 1945, and 1944 draws interest as the second-last year of this design. And the 1944 Dime is a Mercury Dime aka Winged Liberty Head. The inner coin is pure copper while the outer coin is a mix of 75% copper and 25% nickel for that silver shine.īut before 1965, all dimes had 90% silver and 10% copper. That’s why today’s dime is made of 91.67% copper and 8.33% nickel. In silver coins, this is called silver stacking, and the mint resolved this issue first by minting more coins to cover the shortfall, then by switching to base metals like tin, copper, nickel, or zinc. When the price of raw metal is higher than the denomination of the coin (aka face value), citizens melt the coins and sell the molten silver (or gold) for a profit. But wars, price fluctuation, and economic hardship made people hoard these precious metals at various times in history. In the early days, all American coins were gold or silver. But the 1944 Dime was unaffected since it was a 90% silver coin, so let’s explore the 1944 Dime Value. And during the War Years (1942 to 1945), many of these coins developed a limited war-time metal composition to conserve resources for the military. Collectible US coins include the penny (1c), nickel (5c), dime (10c), quarter (25c), half dollar (50c), and $1.

1942 uncirculated mercury dime