In the early 1920's a young Toronto, Canada engineer, Charles Lowry (1895-1976), realized that superheterodyne was the way of the future and set out to design a receiver that would be simple enough to be used by the public since the U.S.A. RCA patent was not enforced in Canada at that time. His circuit used 10 Northern Electric R215-A "Peanut" tubes, a small robust triode of Western Electric design used in telephone repeaters.

In early 1924 Lowry approached a Toronto motorcycle dealer and accessory company, H.M. Kipp Ltd., to build sets to his designs since they were interested in selling radios during their less active winter period. The product of this association was a battery operated set called the "Mercury Super-Ten" and it was sold, assembled or in kit form, from 1925 until 1930. In 1927, Charles Lowry and Kipp could not agree on how to convert the Mercury to operate from household A.C. and Lowry left the company to work for the DeForest Radio Corporation. The Kipp company produced a few different designs in following years but the depression caused a drop in sales of "high end" radios and they abandoned the radio business in 1932.

By late 1927 it was estimated that 7,000 sets had been sold. The basic design of the Super-Ten remained the same for much of it's first 5 years of life although most Mercury chassis found today differ slightly from one another. The sets found today tend to differ often in their outward appearance since they could be purchased as a kit of parts, a fully assembled chassis with front panel or a fully assembled radio housed in one of three models of cabinets and each one could be supplied with black or brown wood grain bakelite with plain or vernier slow-motion dials.