1862

The 1862 Philadelphia dime is a Legend obverse issue struck during the first full calendar year of the Civil War, and the year that the wartime contraction in domestic silver coinage really took hold. Production fell to 847,000 business strikes, a substantial step down from the 1.88-million 1861 output and roughly a third of the figure the main mint had delivered before secession. The collapse was demand-driven rather than supply-driven. The federal government had suspended specie payments on December 30, 1861, paper greenbacks were authorized in February 1862, and the public responded by pulling silver and gold out of daily commerce and into household hoards. With New Orleans out of federal hands and the wartime silver hoard intensifying, most of the 1862 Philadelphia dime output went into Treasury vaults or moved overseas for bullion settlement rather than into ordinary American pockets.

Strike quality on the year is generally good for a Philadelphia Legend dime, with Liberty's head, the obverse legend lettering, and the shield rendered cleanly on early-state dies. Recurring softness shows on the central reverse Cereal Wreath bows and the lower obverse lettering as working dies aged into late states. Survival is broad in low circulated grades (Good through Fine, since the small mintage still got handled by what little commerce did move), thins above Very Fine, becomes scarce in true Extremely Fine and About Uncirculated, and is genuinely difficult at gem Mint State. The disproportionate share of survivors in Mint State is itself a story: because so little of the 1862 output reached daily use before the hoard, a meaningful number of pieces moved straight from the Mint to collectors and into long-term preservation. Authentication runs through the 2.49-gram weight, 17.9-millimeter reeded edge, and the Legend obverse signature on the date.

For collectors, the 1862 reads as a low-mintage Civil War Philadelphia issue with above-average survival in uncirculated grades for the era. Circulated examples through Very Fine surface at moderate premiums, and Mint State pieces draw genuine specialist demand from collectors building Legend-era dime sets across the wartime years. For the broader story of Gobrecht's design, the 1860 Stars-to-Legend obverse transition, and the series' production arc, see the Seated Liberty Dime series history.