I still hunt pocket change. Occasionally, I will hunt through my wife’s pocket change. Actually, she saves her coins in a jar for me to search through at my convenience. Every so often, she asks me to look at the quarter so that they can be used in her office’s soda machine. I took the opportunity to look at the top eighth of the jar to see what I could find.
While digging through the jar looking for quarters, I found a dime that initially struck me as odd. I was expecting to see the usual torch of the Roosevelt Dime reverse but this was different. Not only was the color different but it was a fasces and not a torch. Instantly, I recognized it as the reverse of a Mercury Dime.
When I started collecting in the early 1970s, I would find a Mercury Dime in change along with the silver Roosevelt Dimes. But as the economy fell apart, what was left of circulating silver coins were promptly removed from change. In fact, I have found more silver certificates in change than silver dimes.
Although it is not worth much, it is still fun to find something like this in change.