An incredibly surprising turn of events saw a super rare dime, which had been relegated to obscurity and sat safely in the bank vault for more than 40 years, now sell for the tidy sum of $506,250. The interesting story involves a 1975 Roosevelt dime that was made by the U.S. Mint in San Francisco but lacked the “S” mint mark that all the coins from that mint location must have.
The discovery of a buried treasure
The story of this dime started in the late 1970s, when an Ohio family purchased it. Their coin was one of only two known examples of the 1975 ‘no S’ proof dime, making it highly valuable to collectors. It was kept well and truly locked away by a brother who died, leaving the coin to three sisters; somehow, he must have known it would be a very valuable coin in the future. The dime had been one of the family’s best-kept secrets for decades, quietly laying in the bank vault as a possible financial cushion.
A rare error with historical significance
But what makes this coin rare is that it lacks the “S” mint mark. Normally, proof coins have more detail than normal coins and carry a mint mark that shows what mint produced the coin. In this case, since the “S” of the San Francisco Mint did not appear on the Roosevelt dime, this particular proof coin was one of a kind and very much in demand with numismatists.
Proof sets are groups of coins that are minted and put in special packaging specifically for collectors and not for general circulation. In 1975, the San Francisco Mint produced over 2.8 million proof sets that included six coins each. Only two dimes from those sets turned up without a mint mark; that then made them headliners in the world of coin collecting.
The auction and its significance
It was almost half a century into obscurity before the GreatCollections auction house in Irvine, California brought it to auction. That triggered an avalanche of interest among collectors and enthusiasts from around the world to result in 212 bids for the coin. The auction ended with the sale of the dime for $506,250 assuredly, the testament to its great rarity, and the lure it held for collectors.
The only other ‘no S’ 1975 proof dime known to have been sold went for $456,000 in an auction back in 2019 and then was resold to a collector for $516,000-a truly high and steady demand for such extremely rare coins.
The family’s perspective and future implications
The sale of the dime was an unexpected and life-changing windfall for the Ohio family. Though the sisters who inherited the coin wished to remain anonymous, they related that their brother and mother had originally purchased the error coin for $18,200 back in 1978, about $90,000 today. Operating a dairy farm, the family looked upon the coin as a form of financial security, an investment that has certainly paid off-very big.
With this sale, there is again fever and mystery in the numismatic world. While it is unlikely that many of these dimes will show their face, the happening has re-awakened interest in proof sets of the 1970s. Collectors are now working assiduously through these sets hoping to find similar treasures.
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