1940-S Repunched Mintmark RPM-002

Description

Displaying an S/S West displacement, the 1940-S Mercury Dime RPM-002 preserves evidence of a mintmark punching error at the San Francisco Mint where the S was initially positioned too far to the west before receiving its corrective final punch. Mercury Dimes — properly known as Winged Liberty Head Dimes, designed by Adolph A. Weinman — received their mintmarks by hand-punching individual working dies, a process that guaranteed positional variation across the dozens of dies consumed during a year's production. The westward displacement on RPM-002 means the initial S impression landed to the left of where the engraver intended, and the corrective second punch shifted the mintmark to its proper position, leaving a trace of the first impression visible to the west. San Francisco struck 21,560,000 dimes in 1940, a substantial output as the nation's economy continued its recovery from the Great Depression and military mobilization increased demand for circulating coinage. The Mercury Dime series, spanning 1916 through 1945, is one of the most avidly collected in American numismatics, and RPM varieties add die-variety depth to a series already rich with overdate, doubled die, and die clash varieties. As the second documented RPM for the 1940-S date, RPM-002 establishes that multiple dies received imprecise mintmark placement during this year's production — a frequency consistent with the manual nature of the process. Attribution requires careful examination of the mintmark area under magnification, looking for the telltale shadow of the initial S impression to the left of the final position.

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