1919 Mercury Dime

The armistice ending World War I was signed on November 11, 1918, but the transition to peacetime commerce took months. Philadelphia struck 35,740,000 Mercury dimes in 1919, a postwar production level that reflected both the ongoing need for circulating coinage and the Mint's return to normal operating capacity after wartime pressures. The 1919 Philadelphia is a common date in all grades, and Mint State examples with Full Bands are available without significant effort.

The Eighteenth Amendment was ratified in January 1919, banning the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages effective January 1920. Prohibition would reshape American social life for the next thirteen years, and the dimes struck at Philadelphia that year would circulate through the speakeasies, bootlegging operations, and temperance meetings that followed.