1945-S Repunched Mintmark RPM-002

Description

Second in the repunched mintmark census for the 1945-S Mercury dime, RPM-002 presents a distinctive double-punched inverted S mintmark with the notation "Inverted S/Inverted S South" — indicating that the S mintmark was first punched upside down, then punched inverted again in a position displaced to the south of the first impression. The comments further identify this die as MMS-006 (Ball Serif), referring to a specific mintmark style characterized by rounded, ball-like serif terminals on the S punch. Adolph A. Weinman's Mercury dime design — technically the Winged Liberty Head — was in its final year of production in 1945, before the transition to John R. Sinnock's Roosevelt dime in 1946. San Francisco struck approximately 41.9 million dimes in 1945, the last wartime-year production run. Inverted mintmark punching on Mercury dimes is a well-documented phenomenon: because the small S punch was symmetrical enough to be inserted into the holder upside down without obvious visual indication of the error, mint workers occasionally applied the punch in the wrong orientation. When the inverted punch was then repositioned and struck again — still inverted but displaced southward — it created the overlapping inverted S impressions that define RPM-002. The Ball Serif mintmark style (MMS-006) provides an additional classification layer, as the U.S. Mint used multiple S punches with subtly different serif treatments over the years, and identifying the specific punch contributes to die lineage research. Collectors should examine the mintmark under 15-20x magnification, looking for the telltale rounded serif style and the southward-displaced secondary inverted impression beneath the primary inverted S.

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