Silver Dimes
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(MERCURY DIMES)
- OLD US SILVER DIMES COINS WHEAT PENNY LINCOLN CENT BANK ROLL VINTAGE SET. Free shipping Lot of 5 Mercury Dime 1916-1945 Silver. $1 Face In US 90% Silver Coins! Walkers, Mercury Dimes Kennedys Etc! Free shipping Lot of 10 Roosevelt Dime 1946-1964 Silver.
- Although the United States Mint began making the Roosevelt dime from copper-nickel clad in 1965, some of the 90% silver dime planchets intended for striking 1964 dimes were stamped by the 1965 dies. And the rest, as they say, is numismatic history.
Silver Dimes 1892-1916 Barber Dime Your Barber dime value is $1.44 to $2.09 for a common date coin in heavily worn 'Good' condition. If your coin is better preserved the value increases to $15 and higher in 'Extremely Fine' condition.
charm, found in cultures as diverse as China, Europe, and the United States. Silver coins have been popular in European magic rituals from Medieval times onward. Encased coins, rolled coins, and specially-made good luck tokens are carried as lucky pocket pieces in many parts of the world, but in the United States, when it comes to standard-issue money, tradition dictates that the luckiest greenback is the rare $2.00 bill, and the luckiest coin is the silver dime.European charms utilizing silver coins sometimes call for filing a mark such as an 'X' on the coin or bending it. Such transformations personalize the coin and make it a lucky token.
In Germany, from Medieval times to the present, it has been said that engraving the SATOR square on a silver plate or a silver coin is useful in putting out fires. One simply throws the coin or plate on the fire and the fire goes out. The SATOR square is a block letters that reads the same up, down, back, and forth. It looks like this:
A R E P O
T E N E T
O P E R A
R O T A S
For another example of how the ancient Roman SATOR square is used in German folk-magic, see the page on John George Hohman's 'Pow-Wows or The Long Lost Friend'.
The African-American hoodoo tradition employs both dimes and two dollar bills in numerous money-drawing spells, mojo bags, and gambling 'hands.' The coins may be combined with a John the Conqueror root, a lodestone, sugar, or other ingredients.
According to some folks, a silver 'Mercury' dime with a leap-year date (e.g. 1940) is especially propitious. These Mercury dimes do not really depict the Roman god Mercury, according to coin collector John Montierth (jmmontierth@ucdavis.edu) but 'even though the coin in question was officially designed as Winged Liberty, everyone looks at it and thinks Mercury.' Skip Floyd (SkipFloyd@worldnet.att.net), another coin collector, adds this information: 'On March 3, 1916, the U. S. Treasury adopted the Winged Cap design of Adolph A. Weinman from a public competition. Weinman also won the award for the Half Dollar design. Not only is the face not that of Hermes or Mercury, it is NOT MALE. The portrait of Ms. Liberty is of Elsie Stevens, Mrs. Wallace Stevens.' All that aside, the common name for this coin is still the Mercury dime, and that's how people who use the coin in conjure work refer to it.
A preference for the Mercury dime rather than another silver coin as a gamblers' charm makes a lot of sense when one recognizes that Mercury was the Roman god who ruled crossroads, games of chance, and sleight of hand tricks -- and as such he was equivalent to the African gambling and crossroads spirit variously called Ellegua, Legba, or Eshu, who had the same domain of influence and was known as the keeper of crossroads. Although the figure engraved on the dime was long ago changed to that of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, many folks still prefer the old-style dime -- one hoodoo man i talked to told me, 'You need a Mercury dime to do you any good at all.'
The photo above at left (taken by the folklorist Newbell Niles Puckett in 1925) shows one way to wear a silver Mercury dime -- as an anklet. This is both a protective spell and an invitation to luck in games of chance. The photo at right shows the 'luckiness' of the coin: It is a little 'LUCKY Dime Register Bank' only 2 1/2 inches square and about half an inch high; it counts your dimes as you drop them in, all the way up to $5.00. It dates from the 1930s.
As for why a leap-year date on the coin is luckier than another date, i suspect that it is the rarity or unusualness of a leap-day (one day out of 1461) that recommends the leap-year coin to long-shot gamblers. In making gambling charms, some practitioners combine the leap-year dime with the added unusualness of a two dollar bill, also of a leap-year date, if possible. Again, it is the comparative rarity of this bill that suggests winning against long-shot odds.
The contents of mojo hands vary with the inclinations of their makers, but a typical silver dime gambling charm might consist of a Mercury dime, a small John the Conqueror root, a bit of sugar, and a lucky hand root (a wild orchid root with finger-shaped protrusions that evoke the idea of manual dexterity when playing dice), all wrapped in a leap-year two dollar bill and placed in a red flannel bag. To activate the mojo, its contents would be anointed with some sort of good-luck oil, perhaps red Fast Luck, Three Jacks and a King, or Van Van -- or, as some folks have done, with the urine or menstrual blood of their beloved.
Another hoodoo use for the silver dime is to wear one or at the ankle as a warning device and apotropaic charm: if the coin turns black, an enemy has laid out goofer dust, Hot Foot Powder, or Crossing Powder and you have stepped in it, but it will prove harmless to you. Since formulas for these malicious powders often contain sulphur, which turns silver black on contact, the dime's seemingly magical power is based in practical chemical knowledge. Similarly, a silver dime worn at the throat will turn black is someone tries to poison your food; the dime can also be tested by holding it briefly in the mouth to see if it tarnishes.
Dimes are also used to counteract a curse in hoodoo practice. Typical recipes involve boiling a dime or the filings from its milled edges in water or milk and drinking the liquid to 'kill' the effects of occult poisons such as graveyard dirt, goofer dust, rattlesnake eggs, or snake-shed dust,
The following documentation on silver dimes comes from 'Hoodoo - Conjuration - Witchcraft - Rootwork,' a 5-volume, 4766-page collection of folkloric material gathered by Harry Middleton Hyatt, primarily between 1935 and 1939.
at this web site, please take a moment to open and read the supplementary page called
'Hoodoo - Conjuration - Witchcraft - Rootwork' by Harry Middleton Hyatt.
12992. You tie you a piece of -- some sugar, you takes a piece of lodestone, and you put a silver dime in that, you see. And you sew it up. You sew it up in a red piece of flannel. You make it like dat and you carry it in your pocket, but you won't have no luck though if they have the cheat against you. As long as you keep the cheat off you, you have luck.
(What do you mean 'have the cheat against you'?)
'Cheat,' of course, if you [someone] put down loaded dice or anything, you can't beat it. See, you can't beat anybody that have [loaded dice].
(Oh, they cheat against you.)
Yeah.
(Oh, I see.)
If they cheat, you can't beat a cheat, you see. It won't do no good, you see.
[This theme of 'unless someone cheats' is rare in hoodoo, since it would destroy confidence in 'gambling hands.']
[New Orleans, La., (823), 1191:4.]
9 DIMES - BLUESTONE - ALUM - RED FLANNEL BAG: GAMBLE
13000. Take bluestone an' alum an' make a -- an' take nine silver dimes an' sew it up together, an' maybe yo' go, any kind of game yo' play, yo'll win all de money dey have.
(What do you sew that in?)
Red flannel.
[Waycross, Ga. (1134), 1842:9.]
Silver Dimes 1902
SILVER MONEY - GARLIC - RED FLANNEL: GOOD LUCK
Silver Dimes Value Chart
13007. Dey tell me dey take a piece of silver money an' put it in a red sack -- flannel -- an' put a piece of garlic to it an' tote it on yo'. That be fo' good luck.
[Brunswick, {Ga.} 1992:6.]
9 DIMES IN NATION SACK: PROTECTION AND TRADE
13008. {Get} nine silver dimes, file them, {and} wear in {a}nation sack with lodestone for protection and trade. [For the well-known nation sack, private bag worn by women, see interview, THE 'NATION SACK' WOMAN, pp. 1449-1459, especially p. 1458, vol. 2]
[Memphis, Tenn., (967), 1564:7]
The blues singer Son House once told an interviewer that his friend the blues singer Robert Johnson 'used that silver dime stuff.' The interviewer didn't ask what House meant by that, but the implication is obvious: Johnson practiced hoodoo. In 'Little Queen of Spades,' his paean to a 'gambling woman,' Johnson sings, 'everybody says she's got a mojo.' Her mojo may have been a silver dime conjure hand such as those described here. More to the point, spell number 13008 above explains the otherwise cryptic line in Johnson's famous song 'Come On in My Kitchen': 'I taken the last nickel from her nation sack.' A complete account of this special mojo hand or toby only worn by women, appears on the nation sack page.
Order Magic Amulets and Talismans from the | ||
| Genuine Silver Mercury Dime (Winged Liberty Dime) Mercury Dime, minted from 1916 through 1946; the best dime for protection and gambling luck! | $8.00 AMU-USA-DIME | |
| Name of Herb: HIGH JOHN THE CONQUEROR ROOT, WHOLE, SMALL Use in Magic:Used by many people for the purpose of Drawing LUCK, enjoying Commanding Power, gaining Personal Mastery, and Strengthening Nature. Small, 1 1/2' max., whole root, for pocket piece, mojo bag. (We also sell John the Conqueror Oil for anointing roots.) | $5.00 BOT-JOH-WRSM | |
| Name of Herb: LODESTONE GRIT Use in Magic: Pea-Gravel-size Lodestonesfor making oils or mojo bags. | $4.00 MIN-LOD-AGRI | |
| Name of Herb:LUCKY HAND ROOT, WHOLE, SMALL Use in Magic: Among the most powerful ingredients that can be added to an African-American mojo bag designed to increase gambling luck. Small, 3/4' - 1' long, for use in mojo bag or gambling spell. (We also sell Lucky Hand Oil for anointing the root; click here for list of Oils.) | $4.00 BOT-LUC-WRSM | |
| Name of Herb:LUCKY HAND ROOT, WHOLE, LARGE Use in Magic: Among the most powerful ingredients that can be added to an African-American mojo bag designed to increase gambling luck. Large, 1' - 1 1/2' long, for use in mojo bag or gambling spell. (We also sell Lucky Hand Oil for anointing the root; click here for list of Oils.) | $6.00 BOT-LUC-WRLG | |
| Flannel Bags for making a Mojo Bag or Conjure Hand 2' x 3' RED FLANNEL for GOOD LUCK, GAMBLING, and LOVE-DRAWING Drawstring bags folks want when fixing up mojo hands. Hand-made in the USA. | $2.00 BAG-USA-MORE | |
| Name of Herb: BLUEING: MEXICAN BLUE ANIL BALLS Use in Magic: A solid blueing compound used for good luck, purification, and uncrossing. Recommended as a safe substitute for toxic bluestone (copper sulphate). Packet with full instructions. | $4.00 BLU-BAL-PK07 | |
| Name of Herb: ALUM CHUNK Use in Magic: For stopping gossip and for other protective and cleansing purposes. | $4.00 MIN-ALU-CHUN | |
| Name of Herb: GARLIC CLOVES (AJO JAPONES) Use in Magic: Protective, powerful, and edible; used in cooking and to repel all manner of evil. | $3.00 HER-GAR-CLOV | |
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