Coins Silver

The year was 1915 and there was a movement occurring to switch the rest of Yank coinage. With 3 new designs, all replacing coins Barber himself had designed, it might have gotten upsetting. The records suggest Barber was on his best behavior. Perhaps Barber ultimately just gave up or was too wrinkled too fight any more or simply recognized the beauty in the designs. Barber died in February 1917 and got replaced by Morgan. It is assumed that Woolley planned to award a different coin to each person. It might not have been planned this way, but Weinman ended up getting 2 of his designs as the winning designs. One being what would become called the Walking Freedom Half and the Mercury Dime. MacNeil won the design for the quarter with Polasek getting shut out. Adolph A Weinman was born in Germany and came to the US at the age of ten in 1880. He used to be a student of famous sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens. Saint-Gaudens is also credited with some actually superb coin designs.

By 1915 when the design process started, Weinman was celebrated as one of the state's best sculptors. The winged cap was to designate liberty of thought. Production and release of the new dimes got delayed till later in the year of 1916 as the dies were not quite prepared. Denver though produced a trifling 264,000 making the 1916-D an immediate rarity.

Mercury is the Roman god of trade, property and wealth as well as messenger to the other gods. The hat, called a Petasus, is equivalent to that worn my messengers in the time when Mercury was worshiped. Though not the first and intended name for the new time, the term Mercury stuck and that's what it is understood as today. The Mercury dime served Americans thru 2 world wars ending its run in 1945.