1876-S 10C MS63 PCGS号4681

Ron Guth

The 1876-S Dime set a new record for production by employees at the San Francisco Mint.  Not only is the mintage large by contemporary Dime standards, it exceeds the mintage of all the other 1876-S denominations -- in many cases, by extremely large margins.

1876-S Dimes come with either a Type I or a Type II reverse.  The Type I has split ribbon ends on both sides.  On the Type II, the ribbon on the left side of the wreath ends in a single point.  Overall, the Type I reverse is more common than the Type II reverse.  Researcher Gerry Fortin has identified 23 Type I die varieties and 5 Type II varieties.

Assuming that all die varieties have been discovered, each die pair produced an average of over 370,000 coins.  Thus, it is not unexpected that many 1876-S Dimes are struck from worn dies.  All things being equal, fully struck examples from early states of the dies should be worth a premium.