1945 Mercury Dime

The story of the 1945

Output at Philadelphia slipped to 159,130,000 in 1945, from 231 million the year before. It was also the last year of the series.

It was the big producer of the year, well ahead of 1945-D (40 million) and 1945-S (42 million).

Across Philadelphia's 27 Mercury Dime issues, the hardest to find is the 1921 with 1,230,000 made. The 1945 is one of the easier ones. Within the 1940s it's 14th smallest of 18, between the 1943-D (72 million) and the 1941 (175 million).

More on the 1945

The 1945 Philadelphia dime closes the series with 159,130,000 struck. It is one of the most common Mercury dimes you'll ever find. President Roosevelt died in April of that year. The Treasury moved quickly to put his portrait on the dime, so the Mercury design ended with these coins. The Roosevelt dime appeared on January 30, 1946.

What makes this date famous is its strike. Philadelphia's 1945 dimes are almost never found with fully split center bands, so a genuine Full Bands example is one of the great condition rarities of the series, even though ordinary uncirculated coins are easy to find. If you have a bright uncirculated 1945, look at the center bands under magnification: they should be completely separated across their whole width and rounded, with no merging. Worn examples are worth their metal value. Many people keep a 1945 dime simply as the last year of the design.

Wartime records, the overdates and the last year (1942 to 1945)

World War II pushed dime production to record levels. Philadelphia struck 205,410,000 in 1942 and 231,410,000 in 1944, the highest mintage of the series. The three mints together made 1,223,928,000 Mercury dimes dated 1942 to 1945. Even the smallest issue of the era, the 1945-D, came to 40,245,000. Unlike the nickel, the dime kept its 90% silver alloy throughout the war.

The famous 1942/1 overdates belong here. One working die at Philadelphia and one at Denver received an impression from a 1941 hub and then another from a 1942 hub, leaving traces of a 1 under the final 2. The Philadelphia coin was found in circulation and reported in 1943. It is the bolder of the two. The Denver version is fainter and was not reported in print until 1960. Both are included in their regular mintages and carry a significant premium. Proof dimes ended with 22,329 struck in 1942 and proof coinage stopped for the rest of the war.

After President Franklin Roosevelt died in April 1945, the Treasury chose the dime for his portrait and the Mercury design ended with the 1945 coins. Two things to check on the late dates: the 1945 Philadelphia dime is very common but rarely found with fully split bands. The 1945-S comes with a normal S or a much smaller Micro S, made with a punch first cut for coins struck for the Philippines.

Elsewhere in US coinage in 1945

The last wartime silver nickels were struck before the regular copper-nickel alloy returned in 1946.