1945 Mercury Dime FB

[benjmurts]

Is there something special about the die that it is hard to find Full Bands on these?

 

[DWLange]

There were hundreds, if not thousands, of working dies needed to produce the mintage of 1945(P) dimes, so it was not a particular die that caused the problem. It may be that the working hubs were not properly impressed into these dies to fully bring out their details, or the problem may have been in improper upsetting of the planchets. This process often determines the flow of metal into the dies, with it tending to go either toward the centers (full bands and weak lettering) or toward the peripheries (flat bands and sharper lettering). The exact cause will likely never be known, but the three mints were working multiple shifts, often using poorly trained workers, due to wartime labor shortages. Quality control was the very lowest priority at that time.