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An exceptionally rare dime recently fetched an astonishing $506,250 at auction. As reported by Ian Russell, president of GreatCollections, this remarkable sale took place during an online auction on October 27. This dime is now valued at approximately five million times its original face value of just 10 cents.
Minted in 1975 by the U.S. Mint located in San Francisco, California, the coin features President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and is one of only two known examples that lack the typical “S” mint mark. This absence signifies that it was produced at the San Francisco Mint.
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Identifying where a coin was minted in the United States is straightforward; each coin displays a small capital letter on its obverse side. The letters indicate their origin: D for Denver, P for Philadelphia, S for San Francisco, or W for West Point.
In 1975 alone, over 2.8 million special uncirculated “proof” sets containing six coins were produced and sold for $7 each. Over time, collectors discovered that two dimes from these sets were missing their mint marks.
In a notable auction in 2019, another example of these “no S” proof dimes from 1975 sold for $456,000 before being acquired again shortly after by a private collector.
The dime was sold by three sisters from Ohio who inherited it after their brother’s passing; he had securely stored it in a bank vault for more than four decades. According to reports from the Associated Press, the sisters recounted how their parents purchased an initial error coin back in 1978 for $18,200—equivalent to about $90,000 today—as they considered it a financial safeguard.
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While there may be additional instances of this unique type of dime still out there, they are likely confined within those specific 1975 proof sets rather than circulating as pocket change,Russell noted.
The article titled Ultra-Rare Dime Fetches $506K at Auction first appeared on Popular Science.
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