1940-S Doubled Die Obverse DDO-003

Description

San Francisco's third documented obverse doubled die for the 1940 Mercury dime, DDO-003 presents light spread on the date, maintaining the consistent pattern of date-focused doubling that characterizes many Mercury dime DDOs. The 1940-S had a mintage of approximately 21.6 million pieces, positioning it as the lower-production facility for this date compared to Philadelphia's output. Cross-referenced as 3-O-II-C in the VarietyVista classification — third obverse variety, Class II pivoted doubling, C subtype — and tracked under UVC-118 with die marriage reference DMR-004. Three documented DDOs for the 1940-S date illustrate the scale of die variety census work performed on Mercury dimes from the San Francisco Mint, where the generally lower mintages compared to Philadelphia create a smaller pool of surviving coins but the per-die output was also lower, meaning each variety may be proportionally rarer. Class II pivoted doubling on the date digits creates a rotational spread effect whose magnitude depends on the distance from the pivot center — on the Mercury dime's obverse layout, the date sits far enough from the center to capture detectable spread even from minor angular offsets. Differentiating DDO-003 from DDO-001 and DDO-002 requires attention to the precise character of the date spread, as each originated from a different working die with a unique misalignment geometry.

Die Markers

• UVC-118, DMR-004

Attribution History

• 3-O-II-C

External References