Hello Silver & Gold stackers! Another week sans a Japanese coin. Actually I'm been buying up many Japanese coins, but they are all repeats of coins I've already featured here so I haven't thought to show them. As far as I can see the Japanese mint doesn't do silver coins very often. There was a series of 1oz coins for each prefecture a few years ago, but they command some pretty high prices these days to pick up. Hmm... I'll keep looking for new stuff.

But anyway, so instead today I thought we'd take a look at a couple Barber dimes I picked up a few weeks ago.

I'll give some basic coin stats, then we'll look at both sides, and then I'll give some more general info! Most of you folks in the #silvergoldstacker community know all about this coin. In fact, most of you could probably teach me about it. But for any who don't know about it, I'll go through my regular routine.

Sound fun? Let's go!

Stats

Some basic coin stats for you:

• Weight: 2.5 g
• Diameter: 17.9 mm
• Thickness: 1.2 mm
• Edge: reeded

and most importantly, they're 90% silver, so that means about 2.3 grams of silver apiece. Woohoo silver!

Let's look at the coin a little more.

Front Side

Yeah... one of my coins is in much better condition than the other. Ironically, the one in worse condition cost me more. To those in the know—is that a key date or something?

Anyway, this side features Liberty, wearing a pileus and headband. She is very much modeled in the Roman fashion here. Wikipedia tells me that Barber was accused of copying the Morgan dollar design, simply chopping her hair off. Hmm... I happen to have a Morgan dollar here, so you decide. Are the faces similar?

Back Side

The back is simply "One dime" inside of a wreath. Not exactly exciting on this side.

About

The Barber dime lasted from 1892 to 1916 before being replaced by the Mercury dime. You don't really come across it very often these days. When I was a kid I came across Mercury dimes here and there, but I've never seen a Barber dime in person until I bought these. I can't say it's an amazing design, but it is better than the modern Roosevelt dime. I've ranted before about my dislike of modern US coinage that mostly features old white presidents instead of more interesting designs.

Overall

Overall it's an interesting coin to have if you come across it. Barber also designed the half-dollar and quarter which looked similar, so collecting the set is a thing some people do. A quick search on Ebay shows many people selling all three coins as one unit.

Here it is with a 10 sen coin. Both would have been roughly equal in face value at the time. Though I can appreciate the classical style of the Barber dime, that dragon of the sen is obviously the superior design.

More interesting is look at the back side of the dime and 10 sen. The design is almost identical. The characters on the sen say "10 sen". I wonder if the Japan mint modeled their coin after the dime.

And here with a Mercury dime. The Mercery dime would be my favorite of the two.

But the dragon beats that one too! ...I really should try to buy some more of these dragon 10 sens. They are cool. They have just a little bit less silver (2.16 g vs 2.3 for the Barber dime) but command much higher prices due to either scarcity or because dragons are cooler than mythological ladies with strange hats.

A few more photos to enjoy:

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David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku.