Like so many Mercury things, there was a change at some point in time; so the handles can be found to operate either way. Earlier ones had the handle horizontal, with up being forward and down being reverse. Later ones had the handle vertical in neutral, with the more intuitive forward movement being forward and back being reverse. This change was made easily, because all they had to do was flip the shift cam in the lower unit over, so instead of facing to port, it faced to starboard or vs versa, I forget. If your engine would shift into forward if a vertical handle was moved aft, then your handle should be positioned horizontally in neutral.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 3 months ago by billw.

If it wore through the stripe when being in the vertical neutral position, it was probably installed wrong when you first got it. You have it on right, now.Here is a 3.9 that is right.
https://capecod.craigslist.org/boa/d/west-wareham-39hp-mercury-outboard/7419888150.html

• This reply was modified 2 years, 3 months ago by billw.

I was just using that example for the pictures. Whoever is trying to sell that motor is insane. They will never get $400 for that around here, in a million years. Maybe $100 if he was lucky. There is a guy also on Cape Cod Craigslist trying to sell an Evinrude Super Fastwin that has probably seen salt. It’s like, 1953 vintage, or so. He started out asking $800. I wrote him and said, you know, I don’t mean to be rude but if you brought that to a gathering of antique outboard enthusiasts, you couldn’t get $50 for it. He wrote back and said, thank you for your opinion. He relisted it for $300; and it has been on there for at least a year now, unsold. There is a lot of that on our local CL. I don’t really understand it. I guess they are waiting for that one sucker.