Mercury folks: is this an inverted mintmark?
DennisH
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Found this on a 1942-S while looking through newly graded commons. It pretty much jumped out at me the instant I put a loupe on it. I don't collect Mercs so I don't know if these are common. It's not in the Wexler-Flynn "Treasure Hunting Mercury Dimes" book. Any help/comments would be appreciated.
When in doubt, don't.
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Comments
What I see is a trumpet-tail MM that was not set square to the die, with the top of the S being deeply impressed and the bottom of the S lightly impressed.
JMHO
“We are only their care-takers,” he posed, “if we take good care of them, then centuries from now they may still be here … ”
Todd - BHNC #242
I am not a merc guy particularly, but I have a nice collection of 1940's s -mint variety coins. I am looking at illustrations in Numistmatist May 1999 article re 1941-1949 s mintmark styles as a reference. 1942-s 10c were made with 2 mint mark styles, large s and trumpet-tail s.
The 1942-s trumpet-tail s has "a sharp upper serif and a rounded, trumpet-shaped lower serif. Bottom curve of s is usually thinner than top curve".
The 1942-s 10c, large s "has long, sharp upper and lower serifs". These serifs run parallel and extend both above and below the limbs they arise from.
IMO The s mint mark pictured is a normally-oriented trumpet-tail s, similar to reference picture in the article.
I would also speculate that when the mm was punched into this die, the punch was slightly skewed from perpendicular. Subsequently,when the fields of the die were polished/repolished, the lower limb of the s was polished away somewhat, resulting in the extremely attenuated appearance of the lower 1/2 of the s depicted.
Michael
There are three in this image and another 1942 s (with serifs) for comarison.
President, Racine Numismatic Society 2013-2014; Variety Resource Dimes; See 6/8/12 CDN for my article on Winged Liberty Dimes; Ebay