Barber Dimes (Liberty Head)

Charles E. Barber designed the dime that bears his name, along with matching quarter and half dollar designs that entered production the same year. Barber had been Chief Engraver since 1880, and the 1892 redesign was his major project, a unified look for the three workhorse silver denominations that would replace the Seated Liberty designs Congress had grown tired of. The Treasury had held an open design competition in 1891, inviting outside artists to submit proposals, but Mint Director Edward Leech rejected all the entries as unsuitable for coinage production. The competition's failure handed the job back to Barber, which may have been the outcome he preferred all along. Breen and others have suggested that Barber quietly undermined the outside submissions, though the evidence is circumstantial. What is clear is that Barber got the assignment, and he produced designs that were professional, functional, and thoroughly conservative.