In 1921 the Mint had one overwhelming job, and it was not dimes. The Pittman Act required a replacement silver dollar for every one melted in 1918, and the presses ran day and night striking more than 86 million dollars across three mints. Add a sharp postwar depression that gutted demand for new coinage, and subsidiary coins became an afterthought: Philadelphia struck just 1,230,000 dimes all year.
The result is the series' great semi-key pair, this coin and its Denver twin. Both circulated through the hard years that followed, so mid-grade and better examples carry real premiums, and both are perennial targets for date alteration, usually from the plentiful dimes of neighboring years.
A coin made scarce by a melt three years earlier and two thousand miles of priorities. The 1921 is the affordable way to own the series' second-tier scarcity, and the date is the thing to inspect: altered dates chase this coin, and when the last digit looks doubtful, it usually is.
| Issue | Mint | Mintage |
|---|---|---|
| 1921 Mercury Dime | Philadelphia | 1,230,000 |
| 1921-D Mercury Dime | Denver | 1,080,000 |
Mintage figures: United States Mint, Annual Report of the Director of the Mint, cross-checked across independent published references. Specifications: United States Mint coin specifications.