Mercury Dime Grading

I think in time we all learned and come to conclusion with our own method of grading, the Red Book is more of a retail price guide, and just like all price guides, common items can be worth less then what is listed at. And scarce items even in low grade possibly go over guide cost. LCS can charge $3 or little more for junk silver dime, that's a business practice! Is it worth $3? Buyer decision.

Split grades in low grade coins default to the low side if its g-3/g-4 = g-3, vg-10/vg-8 = vg-8, etc. That is why not all graded coins are equal. You can almost forget about price guide if silver goes back to $50 an ounce, grading would not be subjective in that case for common date coins.

There were no 32' nor 33' Mercury dime minted, although if you do find one of those soviet made dime, it would be a small treasure.

thanks, macmercury - very interesting and informative! Never heard of that before, though I have seen the footnote.

Is there an estimated number of total Mercury dimes left in circulation? Is this something that is done in general for mass produced classic coins?

I thought someone might recognize me ;) Aside from the rare Russian counterfeits, have the Mercury dimes been known to be counterfeited? Any way to know what to look out for? I was also wondering about uncommon errors such as die cracks, etc. If I were to find a die crack Mercury dime, would that be worth anything in a common date in non-mint condition?

Thank you MacMercury. I looked on David Lang's website and did not see any books for sale. I found the second edition for over $50 on ebay, which seemed steep to find a few factiods...

Doc, The complete guide to Mercury dimes is available for free on Lang website, if you preferred the HC book, it is out of print and the reason for the high cost.

When price of metal goes up, the more average quality common dates numismatic silver coins levels out with current price of precious metal, unless PM sky rocket, which at this point it doesn't appear to happen soon, might be a good time to pick up a few for your collection. But I would buy the common dates in AU and above, which adds to the premium.