Barber Dimes Poised To Rise In Value
IN MY 65+ years of experience with U.S. coins, I’ve always had a fondness for Barber-designed coins, particularly the silver pieces. The reason for this fondness is not difficult to determine: Although scarce, they were still found occasionally in circulation when I started collecting. Thus, to me as a junior collector, Barbers were the oddballs. The dimes looked nothing like the Mercury dimes so prevalent at the time, or the Roosevelts that were still relatively new in the early 1950s.
I knew from my 1958 Red Book (A Guide Book of United States Coins) that the Barber silver pieces were designed by Charles E. Barber, Chief Engraver of the Mint. What I didn’t know at the time was how he got the assignment, or why the previous Seated Liberty design was changed.
As for the latter question, the Seated Liberty design had been on the dime since 1837, and its 54-year tenure had long since worn out its welcome. Several years before its actual demise, the 1876 The Galaxy magazine published the following:
Why is it we have the
