WEEK #576

[LISA B]

This weeks First and Second place winners will be picked at random…

The question must be answered by Saturday at midnight EST

 

QUESTION:

 

Why was the mintage of dimes at Denver in 1916 so low?

 

This weeks winner will a copy of David W. Akers, United States Gold Patterns.

 

There will also be a runner up prize given to a selected player with the correct answer.

 

REMINDER: The Numisma-Quest ends on Saturday at midnight EST. Entries after that time will not be valid. See the Trivia info post for more details…….

 

[SamD]

The most popular explanation -- advanced by Walter Breen -- was that mint production of dimes in Denver in 1916 was stopped so that Denver Mint personnel could devote full time to making quarters.

 

The mintage of 264,000 for the 1916-D is by far the lowest of the Mercury dime series. For comparision, the mintage of the 1916 was 22,180,080 and the mintage for the 1916-S was10,450,000.

 

[Deerefan8420]

The low mintage is because in November 1916, Friedrich Johannes Hugo von Engelken informed the three mint superintendents of a large order for quarters, and instructed that Denver strike only quarters until it was filled. Striking of dimes at Denver did not resume until well into 1917, making the 1917-D relatively rare as well.

[yonico]

In November of 1916, von Engelken (Director of the United States Mint) contacted the superintendents in Philadelphia, Denver and San Francisco saying the mint had received a large order for quarters, and he suggested that the Denver mint will stop production of all coins and strike quarters only until the order was filled completely.

[hunter's gold]

The low mintage is because in November1916, von Engelken informed the 3 mint superintendents of a large order for quarters, and instructed the Denver mint to strike only quarters until it was filled. Striking of the dimes at the Denver mint did not resume until well into 1917. this also resulted in the 1917D minted dime being rare as well.

[Amarillo]

Mint officeals were under the misapperhension that the designs to be changed, and so a competition among the three sculrtos was held.

[rrantique]

Production and release of the new dimes was delayed until later in the year of 1916 as the dies were not quite ready. The Philadelphia and San Francisco mint produced Barber dimes much of 1916 to meet demand while Denver ceased producing Barber dimes in 1914.

[bsshog40]

Maybe because of the new designs that were coming out the same year? Minting may have stopped early to start the new designs.

[Collector1-migration]

Towards the end of the year In 1916 production of the Mercury Dimes at the Denver mint was halted so that the staff working at the Denver mint could focus on minting quarters instead. Only 264,000 1916-D Mercury Dimes were minted before production was forced to end.

[Coindude]

First off, the mint did not start producing Mercury dimes until midway through the year. The first dimes that were produced had problems with "fins" in the rim and the vending machine companies requested a change to alleviate the problem.

 

As well, the low mintage is because in November 1916, von Engelken informed the three mint superintendents of a large order for quarters, and instructed that Denver strike only quarters until it was filled. Striking of dimes at Denver did not resume until well into 1917, making the 1917-D relatively rare as well.

[jayman1970]

The low mintage is because in November 1916, von Engelken informed the three mint superintendents of a large order for quarters, and instructed that Denver strike only quarters until the order was met. Striking of dimes at Denver did not resume until well into 1917, making the 1917-D relatively rare as well.

 

 

 

[dadams]

The entire mintage of Dimes at Denver in 1916 occurred in November of that year and at the end of the month the Denver mint switched to producing quarters to fill a large Treasury Department order.

[AuMorgan82110-migration]

The low mintage is due to an order from mint director von Engelken for Denver to strike only quarters due to a very large order. This happened in November of 1916 after only 264,000 had been minted since their release on October 30th of that year.

[sc7000]

[font:Century Gothic] [/font]

 

The mint had to devote full time to making quarters.

[CyberspaceVoid]

The Denver Mint director had been instructed to fill a huge order of quarters and the production of dimes stopped creating their low mintage numbers.

[rockhobby]

The dimes were only produced in November of 1916. They switched production to the Quarter due to a large order from the Treasury Dept. and cancelled all production of other denominations until 1917.

 

Doug

[dragon]

Production of the 1916-D dime was stopped late in the year because the Treasury Dept. put in an order for the production of quarter dollars, and the Denver mint then produced quarter dollars for the balance of that year.

 

 

 

[LISA B]

QUESTION:

 

Why was the mintage of dimes at Denver in 1916 so low?

 

Answer: Shortly after dies for the new dime arrived the Denver Mint was instructed to concentrate on quarter dollar coinage alone.

 

This weeks winner CyberspaceVoid won a copy of David W. Akers, United States Gold Patterns.

 

AUmorgan82210 is our runner up and has won an NGC display box.

 

Thank you for playing and please stop by this Friday for the PMG Numisma-Quest question