Welcome to the second installment of "Tips from the Grading Room." In the last issue, we took a look at what constituted a "Full Head" Standing Liberty Quarter. This time, we'll examine another important qualifier – what must qualify for a Full Band Winged Liberty Head or "Mercury" dime, designated "FB" by PCGS.
Full Bands (FB) is the designation following the numerical grade of some regular-strike Mercury dimes that have fully separated horizontal bands on the central part of the fasces (the bundle-of-rods design on the reverse). There can be no interruption in the trough of the bands due to strike, contact, planchet problems or any other damage, whether mint-caused or not.
Note: Although the central bands must be fully separated with no interruption, it is not necessary to have full roundness to the bands – the so-called "McDonald's Arches" that are sometimes referred to as Full Split or Full Rounded Bands. For some dates (i.e. 1945-P, etc.) this ultimate state almost never occurs, and thus may command a significant premium.
The following six photographs are captioned, and should be self-explanatory:
Copper & Nickel
Silver Coins
Gold Coins
Commemoratives
Others
Bullion
World
Coin Market
Auctions
Coin Collecting
PCGS News