1916-D Mercury Dime
Key dateThe key date of the series by a wide margin, and one of the best-known key dates in U.S. coinage. Denver struck only 264,000 dimes in 1916 because its presses were committed to quarters, and the coins entered circulation before collectors knew to save them. It is scarce in every grade and rare in high mint state.
Mintage
- Business strikes
- 264,000
- Mint
- Denver (D)
- Mintage rank
- 1 of 77
Rank 1 is the lowest business-strike mintage in the series. Mintage is what the Mint produced, not what survives. These circulated as everyday money for decades, and enormous numbers were melted for their silver after 1965, none of it recorded by date. On this series in particular, strike quality separates the difficult coins far more than mintage does.
Reading the figure
It is the smallest of the 25 Denver issues in the series. Of the 32,894,080 struck across all mints in 1916, this issue accounts for under 1%. Philadelphia struck 84 times as many that year. The 1916 split ran Philadelphia 22,180,080, San Francisco 10,450,000 and Denver 264,000. The series median is 19,480,000, so fewer than half as many of these were struck as a typical date.
Every sentence above is computed from the mintage table on this page, not asserted separately.
Scarcity tier
Key date
Assigned from reported mintage alone: under 750,000 is a key date, under 2,500,000 is a semi-key.
This is a reproducible label derived from the mintage column, not a market valuation and not a Coin Curator price opinion. The same thresholds apply to every series on this site. Several dates are far harder or far easier to obtain than their mintage implies; where that is true, it is stated above.
Full Bands is a strike designation, not a grade. The reverse shows a fasces, and the two horizontal bands around its centre are the last detail to strike up. Read the full note on the series page.
What to check before buying
Specific to the 1916-D:
- 1This is among the most counterfeited U.S. coins of the twentieth century. The usual fake is a genuine 1916 Philadelphia dime with a D mintmark added, so examine the mintmark for a seam, a tooled field, or the wrong shape and position.
- 2Certification by a major service is the practical baseline at this date. Verify the certification number on the service's own lookup, not from a photograph of the label.
And for any certified coin
Verify the certification number on the grading service’s own lookup rather than from a photograph of the label, match the listing images to the certification record including grade and any variety attribution, look for cleaning, compare the mintmark against published photographs of the genuine issue, and read the return policy before buying. The grading guide covers each of these in full.
Coin Curator does not grade, authenticate, or appraise coins, and publishes no price or population data. These are verification steps, not a valuation.
Verify a certification number
Look a 1916-Dcertification number up on the service’s own site. A photograph of a label proves nothing.
Each service publishes its own guarantee with conditions and exclusions. Compare PCGS, NGC and ANACS.
Find a 1916-D for sale
Opens an eBay search for this exact date and mint. Coin Curator does not list inventory, hold stock, or quote prices; verify each listing, seller, and return policy directly.
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Common questions
How many 1916-D Mercury dimes were minted?
The Denver Mint struck 264,000 1916-D Mercury dimes for circulation. That is the 1st lowest business-strike mintage of the 77 date and mintmark combinations in the series.
Is the 1916-D Mercury dime a key date?
Coin Curator labels it a key date, assigned from reported mintage alone: under 750,000 struck is a key date and under 2,500,000 is a semi-key. The same thresholds are used for every series on this site, so the tiers are comparable between them. That label describes production, not market value or how hard the coin is to find today. The key date of the series by a wide margin, and one of the best-known key dates in U.S. coinage. Denver struck only 264,000 dimes in 1916 because its presses were committed to quarters, and the coins entered circulation before collectors knew to save them. It is scarce in every grade and rare in high mint state.
What should I check before buying a 1916-D Mercury dime?
Verify the certification number on the grading service's own lookup page, match the listing photographs to the certification record, check for cleaning, and compare the mintmark shape and position against published photographs of the genuine issue. This is among the most counterfeited U.S. coins of the twentieth century. The usual fake is a genuine 1916 Philadelphia dime with a D mintmark added, so examine the mintmark for a seam, a tooled field, or the wrong shape and position.
Related dates
Guides for this coin
All guides →Mercury Dime Guide: the 1916-D & Full Bands
One of the most beautiful US coins. Most dates are pocket-change cheap, but the 1916-D key and the “Full Bands” strike designation turn this affordable series into a real pursuit.
1 min readMarket ContextJunk Silver vs Graded Silver: Which Is the Better Hold?
Pre-1965 US silver coins (junk silver) trade on melt value plus a small premium. Graded examples of the same coins trade on numismatics. Which strategy actually wins long-term?
1 min readEducationWhat Makes a Coin a “Key Date”, and Why It Drives Value
Coins from the same series can differ sharply in availability and demand. Learn how date, mintmark, variety, grade, and surfaces shape key-date research.
1 min readBuying GuideApproachable Key-Date Coins to Research First
Seven dates that teach scarcity, identification, grade tradeoffs, and counterfeit-aware buying, without promising a fixed price or resale result.
1 min readMintage sources
Mintage figures are U.S. Mint production records, cross-checked against the published tables below on 2026-07-31. Where those tables disagree, the disagreement is disclosed on the affected page rather than resolved silently.
- CoinMintages.com, Mercury dime mintages — Business strikes and proofs listed separately. Carries no separate row for the 1942/1 overdates, consistent with them having no reported mintage.
- LandOfCoins, Mercury dime mintage — Independent table with business strikes and proofs in separate columns. Agrees on all 77 issues and all seven proof figures.
- Wikipedia, "Mercury dime" — No mintage table, but the source for the 1916-D key-date figure, the 1922/1932/1933 production gaps, and the 1942/1 being a doubled die rather than a separately reported issue.
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