1935 Mercury Dime Shouldn't Exist?

Anything is possible as long as you can Sell someone to believe the story, but not in this forum.

That's not how science works.

The ancients used to believe that eclipses were caused by giant space dragons swallowing the Sun. It was a reasonable hypothesis, given their lack of understanding of orbital mechanics, but we now have very strong evidence that eclipses are caused by non-dragon-related events. We haven't "proved that giant space dragons don't exist", but we have proved that they don't cause eclipses. And if the whole eclipse thing was your only evidence for the existence of giant space dragons, then it is fair for everyone to assume that giant space dragons don't exist, since you now have zero evidence for their existence. Speculating about their existence with zero supporting evidence would be fantasy, or science-fiction - but not science.

You have a scientific observation - some odd markings on a coin - and a scientific hypothesis - that the odd markings were caused by someone in the mint. So let's scientifically test this hypothesis to try to disprove it.

I am vague about your claims as to someone in the mint causing these marks. Did this mysteriously helpful person mark this specific coin, or did they mark the dies? Marking the dies would make more sense, if it's to "point out a flaw in the die". However, scratches or grooves cut onto a die would cause raised lines, not recessed lines.

This leaves someone in the Mint carving this onto the coin. Why would they do that, when they could simply carve the die? Carving something onto a coin doesn't really help the die worker find the problem on the die itself - especially if you've gone and obliterated the area on the coin that needs to be touching up on the die.

You claim the markings are a bunch of interconnected "W"s. But I think they look like interconnected "M"s. Or, more likely, that it's just a zig-zag pattern, not intending to resemble lettering of any kind.

You postulate that the "W"s are for the designer, Adolph A. Weinman. But why would anybody in the mint have used Ws for this reason? Weinmann submitted his design for the dime, got paid, mission accomplished - he knew little and cared less about actually producing the coins, he was an artist not an engineer and certainly would have had no personal interest or involvement in their production 20 years after he had originally submitted his design proposals. Why would some random mint worker use the initials of the long-gone designer to draw attention to a die flaw, rather than, I don't know, his own initials, or the intials of the guy whose job would be to fix it? Or a circle, or an arrow, or some more useful marking to indicate the problem location?

Then let's examine the entire coin holistically. We have what is a rather well worn coin. These markings are quite deep and prominent. Surely, one would think, that if these markings were present on the coin from the time it left the mint, then somebody would have noticed it and kept it long before it was worn down to its present state.

Finally, is there any evidence - any at all, from Mint records or other surviving examples - that such markings were applied to coins in some kind of standard practice in the Mint? No, there is not. In 1935, dies and the material needed to make them were not in short supply. A badly worn or damaged die would simply be retired, rather than "repaired". Repairing a hardened steel working die is very difficult, and kind of pointless since the repair job would inevitably look sloppy and unprofessional, compared to simply getting a brand new replacement die.

Yes, in theory, someone inside the Mint could have picked up a freshly minted coin, scratched some very carefully placed random squiggles onto it for no good reason, then tossed it back into the hopper. But since "being inside the Mint" is not required for such behaviour, and the vast majority of humans that touched this coin between 1935 and today were people who were not employed at the Mint, Occam's Razor says it is entirely reasonable to assume that it was someone outside the Mint who did these things.

Aw darn it, from the title it sounded like someone had unearthed some kind of scandal where the 1935 dime should not have been minted, but was minted anyway.

That would have made for good reading, not to mention a good film noir movie! I'm sure Tom Hanks would have been good in the lead role.

Indeed. Our coins deserve better! When I want to "make a statement" I use a worn out FRN. It has a lot more real estate and will get recycled soon anyway.

@russ, you will notice that I have removed your reply from this thread. As CCF is a place of learning, please have the heart of a teacher as you respond to folks, even when you disagree with them. Save the snark for elsewhere on the interwebs. Thx.

Wake up, man. You have a defaced coin here.