1916-D Mercury Dime (1916-1945)

Intriguing History

Denver struck only 264,000 Mercury dimes in 1916, a fraction of Philadelphia's output, reportedly because the branch mint was tied up filling a rush order of quarters instead. The shortfall went largely unnoticed until collectors assembling date sets in the 1930s realized how genuinely scarce the Denver dime was. That scarcity has made the 1916-D one of the most heavily counterfeited coins in the series, with fake mint marks routinely added to common Philadelphia dimes.