1931-S Mercury Dime
Semi-keyA low-mintage San Francisco issue and the last dime struck there until 1935.
Mintage
- Business strikes
- 1,800,000
- Mint
- San Francisco (S)
- Mintage rank
- 6 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
Among the 25 San Francisco issues in the series it is the 2nd smallest. Of the 6,210,000 struck across all mints in 1931, this issue accounts for 29%. Philadelphia struck 1.8 times as many that year. The 1931 split ran Philadelphia 3,150,000, San Francisco 1,800,000 and Denver 1,260,000. The series median is 19,480,000, so fewer than half as many of these were struck as a typical date. 1931 was the 2nd smallest production year of the 27 in the series.
Every sentence above is computed from the mintage table on this page, not asserted separately.
Scarcity tier
Semi-key
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.
Recent sold prices
Last checked Sep 16, 2026 · most recent sale Sep 11, 2026What certified 1931-S Mercury dimes actually sold for on eBay in the last 90 days, grouped by grade band. Every figure below is a completed sale of a PCGS, NGC or ANACS coin in a straight grade. This is a record of what changed hands, not a price guide, an appraisal, or a prediction of what yours is worth.
Mint State
MS60 and above$325
Median of 8 sales
- Lowest
- $193
- Highest
- $3,696
The 4 most recent sales
- $193PCGS MS63 · Sep 11, 2026PCGS MS63 1931-S Mercury Dime 10C Silver Business Strike San Francisco
- $400PCGS MS63 · Aug 26, 20261931-S Mercury Dime 10C Silver .900 PCGS MS63 Slabbed Business Strike
- $350PCGS MS65 · Aug 12, 20261931-S San Francisco Mint Mercury Silver Dime PCGS MS65 Beautiful Coin!!
- $329PCGS MS65 · Aug 7, 20261931-S San Francisco Mint Mercury Silver Dime Slabbed PCGS MS65 NO RESERVE
Seller titles, verbatim. An ended eBay listing stays readable for about 90 days, so older links will expire.
How to read these
- The median is the middle sale after removing outliers. The range is every sale kept, including the outliers, so you can see how wide the market actually is.
- Grade drives most of the difference. A band with three sales tells you far less than a band with thirty, and the count is shown so you can weigh it.
- Sales of coins in “Details”, “Genuine” or cleaned holders are excluded, as are proofs, replicas, lots, and mounted coins. Those sell at prices that would not describe the coin on this page.
- So is any sale priced below what this same date fetches in a lower grade, which is impossible for a real coin and is how a counterfeit in a convincing holder gives itself away.
- 4 further qualifying sales fell in a grade band with fewer than 3 sales, which is too few to report a median from, so they are not shown.
Coin Curator does not grade, authenticate, or appraise coins, and holds no licensed price guide or population data. How this data is collected.
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
Nothing about this date calls for a check beyond the ones that apply to any certified coin.
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 holds no licensed price guide or population data. Where this page shows recent sold prices, they are records of completed eBay sales, not a valuation of any particular coin. These are verification steps, not an appraisal.
Verify a certification number
Look a 1931-S certification 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 1931-S for sale
Opens an eBay search for this exact date and mint. Coin Curator does not list inventory, hold stock, or set prices; verify each listing, seller, and return policy directly.
Affiliate link: Coin Curator may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Disclosure.
Common questions
How many 1931-S Mercury dimes were minted?
The San Francisco Mint struck 1,800,000 1931-S Mercury dimes for circulation. That is the 6th lowest business-strike mintage of the 77 date and mintmark combinations in the series.
Is the 1931-S Mercury dime a key date?
Coin Curator labels it a semi-key, 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. A low-mintage San Francisco issue and the last dime struck there until 1935.
What should I check before buying a 1931-S 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.
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: How to Think About the Tradeoffs
Pre-1965 US silver coins (junk silver) and certified examples of the same coins respond to different inputs. A framework for researching each one: what to verify, what melt value does and does not cover, and when each is worth a closer look.
1 min readBuying GuideMS-63 vs MS-65 vs MS-67: Which Grade to Actually Buy
Adjacent grades can carry very different market evidence. Learn how to compare surfaces, eye appeal, population data, and current records before choosing a grade.
1 min readEducationPCGS vs NGC vs ANACS: Which Grading Service for Coins?
Compare PCGS, NGC, and ANACS by current service terms, holder and guarantee limitations, verification tools, and the needs of the particular coin.
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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