page_title: Mercury dime
section_title: Design
hierarchical_section_title: Mercury dime / Design
caption_attribution_description: English: Photograph of Adolph Alexander Weinman
context_page_description: The Mercury dime is a ten-cent coin struck by the United States Mint from late 1916 to 1945. Designed by Adolph Weinman and also referred to as the Winged Liberty Head dime, it gained its common name because the obverse depiction of a young Liberty, identifiable by her winged Phrygian cap, was confused with the Roman god Mercury. Weinman is believed to have used Elsie Stevens, the wife of lawyer and poet Wallace Stevens, as a model. The coin's reverse depicts a fasces, symbolizing unity and strength, and an olive branch, signifying peace.
  By 1916, the dime, quarter, and half dollar designed by Mint Chief Engraver Charles E. Barber had been struck for 25 years, and could be replaced by the Treasury, of which the Mint is a part, without Congressional authorization. Mint officials were under the misapprehension that the designs had to be changed, and held a competition among three sculptors, in which Barber, who had been in his position for 36 years, also took part. Weinman's designs for the dime and half dollar were selected.
context_section_description: Weinman never disclosed the name of the model for the obverse, and no person ever claimed to have been her.  The winged Liberty is widely believed, however, to have been based on a 1913 bust Weinman sculpted of Elsie Stevens, wife of Wallace Stevens.  A lawyer and insurance executive, Wallace Stevens later became famous as a poet; Wallace and Elsie Stevens rented an apartment from Weinman from 1909 to 1916.  In a draft of his unpublished autobiography, Woolley wrote that Weinman refused to name the model, but told him it was the wife of a lawyer who lived above his Manhattan apartment (Woolley, in a later version, omitted the location, saying only that Weinman said it was the wife of a lawyer friend).  Woolley recorded that he was told that the model wore the top of an old pair of stockings to simulate the cap.  In 1966, Holly Stevens, Wallace and Elsie's daughter, noted in her edition of her father's letters that Elsie had been the model for Weinman's dime and half dollar.  Liberty's features also bear a resemblance to the face of Victory in Weinman's 1909 statuary group erected in Baltimore, the Union Soldiers and Sailors' Monument.
  Weinman's dime depicts Liberty with a wreath of tight curls, and wearing a traditional pileus, or Liberty cap.  His depiction of the pileus as a winged cap has provoked comparisons with Roman Republic denarii, which art historian Cornelius Vermeule considered superficial.  Weinman wrote that he considered the winged cap to symbolize "liberty of thought".  Vermeule suggests that one reason for the use of wings was that Weinman, in common with many in the tradition of Augustus Saint-Gaudens, under whom Weinman had studied, liked the effect of feathers done in relief.  The reverse depicts a fasces, the object carried by lictors, who accompanied Roman magistrates; on the coin it represents war and justice.  It is contrasted with a large olive branch symbolizing peace.  According to Breen, "Weinman's symbolic message in this design ... was clearly an updated 'Don't tread on me'". The fasces is bound both horizontally and diagonally by a leather strap, with the loose ends at the bottom. The lettering is in Roman style, and is made as discreet as possible.  Weinman's monogram, AW, appears on the obverse, midway between the date and the letter Y in "LIBERTY".  The mintmark is located on the reverse, to the right of the first E in "ONE DIME".
  Woolley described the design in his 1916 report to the Secretary of the Treasury:
  The design of the dime, owing to the smallness of the coin, has been held quite simple.  The obverse shows a head of Liberty with winged cap.  The head is simple and firm in form, the profile forceful.  The reverse shows a design of the bundle of rods, with battle-ax, known as "Fasces", and symbolical of unity, wherein lies the nation's strength.  Surrounding the fasces is a full-foliaged branch of olive, symbolical of peace.
caption: Adolph Weinman is widely believed to have used his neighbor, Elsie Stevens, as the model for the Mercury dime.
exif: {"Image Artist": "Rick", "Image ExifOffset": "2128", "Image XPAuthor": "Rick", "Image Padding": "[]", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2011:05:30 14:12:37", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2011:05:30 14:12:37", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "25", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "25", "EXIF Padding": "[]"}