A Little Out Of My League, Complete Mercury Dimes Set

To me, the '16-D looks like a fake. The D looks nothing like the 1916 mint-mark style to my eye. I don't even think it's a 1916 reverse.

I've rotated the image and done a rough perspective/angle correction to make it easier to look at.



Look here for reference images of the four 1916-D dies and here for reference images for the different mint-mark styles used during the series.

The 1916/1917 mintmark has a fairly narrow center, sorta triangular, slot shape. The one in this looks wide and open. Also notice the floating olive leaves, which is standard on dates after 1925 or so, but less common before. It can happen from die polishing, but I don't recall seing a '16-D like that.

I don't like that "D". Maybe it is just the picture, but the inside of the D looks roundish or squarish. A real 1916 D should have a diamond shaped to triangular interior of the D. This is one of those coins that I would never buy on ebay unless it was slabbed or I REALLY trusted the seller.

I am not a Mercury dime specialist and I am sorry to be a naysayer but the 16D looks like a fake to me. None of the 4 16D mintmark placements puts the "D" so far below the point of the bottom branch. Just doesn't match up with the ones I have seen or the examples in the Counterfeit Detection guides. I would be very careful with this set and make sure I had a long term return policy on the 4 key dates to allow the coins to be run past one of the top 3 TPGs.

The album itself says absolutely nothing about the age of the collection. Just because it is an old album doesn't mean you cannot go out and buy one today. There are currently 55 listings on ebay for Library of Coins albums, including 4 Merc albums. At best, the 1916D has an added mintmark and at worst, it is an outright fake. The 1916 is supposed to have the same triangular D mintmark that is also a diagnostic for 1914D Lincolns, any other shape is NOT genuine. With that said, the overall appearance and details of the coin are just not right and there are areas of odd weakness that are not wear-related.

To add some more, the reverse doesn't have the textured fields associated with 1916 dimes (though this can be hard to tell on circulated specimens). Also, in spite of the rarity and poor condition they're usually seen in, 1916-D dimes were generally well made with solid strikes both in the center and periphery. This reverse shows weakness and spreading in the periphery more associated with later dates, as well as the missing central detail I noted above (see a discussion here about damage to the master hub which caused a loss of detail in dimes dated after 1925).

It could be a later date reverse mated with a genuine 1916-P obverse, or it could be an wholly manufactured Chinese fake. In fact, I don't think the mint-mark is a very good match for any date in the series. I'm leaning toward the "total fake" idea right now over a modified 1916-P just because of the overall roughness/crudeness of the coin.

If I wanted to pass a fake 1916-D, I might buy a nice complete set in an album, swap the genuine '16-D for a fake, but leave the other keys to give it an appearance of authenticity. Then I'd try to sell the set at a bargain price ($4000 would be a very good price for a set with a genuine VF '16-D along with the other keys) so that someone might jump on it without looking that closely. I'm not saying that's what this seller did - he might be the victim, or just one in a chain of victims - but it's a possibility.

Not sure if any of those are real or fakes but it is absolutely odd that anyone would put a $4,000 value on that set unless something is wrong. In those grades the 16D, 21, 21D and the 42/41 alone would go for way more than that.
Also, odd that anyone would even think of putting those in a cheap Folder instead of an Album.
With so many fakes out there on the 16D alone would make me very cautious. And too I always worry about the reverses of any coins in a Folder for long periods of time.
A fear here too would be if you got this set and sent some in for authenticating and they came back fake, the original seller would and could simply say you switched them. Note the statement that once opened, this item is not replacable.
Nor would he accept it back after you opened it and found whatever.

I requested the seller to take a shoot on the edge of the 16 D, see if he comply.

Check out his other auctions.

He is one of the "unsearched" cent roll sellers. He has to be legit, he says recently someone found an 09 S VDB in one of his rolls!