Three Sisters in Ohio just sold a rare 1975 dime with a missing ‘S’ mint mark for $500,000

A rare dime featuring a portrait of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, just sold for more than $500,000.

The coin, minted in San Francisco in 1975, was part of a large collection of ‘proof’ dimes. It was also one of two known examples from that set to contain an error: a missing mintmark “S,” making the coin a valuable collector’s item.

On October 27, three sisters from Ohio, who jointly owned the dime, sold it on Great collectionsan auction house specializing in valuable currencies.

“This is a very exciting coin for our company to auction,” said Ian Russell, president of GreatCollections Newsweekby Natalie Venegas. “We have handled many trophy coins over the years, including two 1913 nickels and two 1804 silver dollars, but this is the first time we have the 1975 ‘no S’ proof dime.”

In 1978, the mother and brother of the three sisters bought the coin for $18,200, which, according to one study, amounts to about $90,000 today. statement from GreatCollections. When their brother died, they inherited the coin, which had been stored in a bank vault for more than forty years.

According to the newspaper, the family considered it a ‘financial safety net’ for their dairy farm Associated press. One of the sisters told the news agency that their brother often talked about the coin, although she had not seen it in real life until recently.

Mint marks are letters that indicate where a coin was produced. For example, the Mint’s Philadelphia branch once marked their coins with the letter “P,” while some coins made at the West Point Mint are marked with a “W.”

“(Mint marks) hold the maker accountable for the quality of a coin,” the United States currency. “When the US used precious metals such as gold and silver to create circulating coins, a committee evaluated the metal compositions and quality of the coins from each of the Mint facilities. The assessments ensured that each facility was producing coins to the correct specifications.”

In 1975, the San Francisco Mint produced a proof set of more than 2.8 million coins. Three years later, collectors discovered that two of the dimes in that set were missing the “S” mark, making them a “modern rarity,” according to the lot list.

These two coins are the only “no S” proof 1975 dimes known to exist, although it is certainly possible there are more, as Russell tells the AP. In 2019, the other known example sold for $456,000. The buyers, a group that included coin expert Mitch Spivack, sold it five days later for $516,000.

“It was a great honor for me to own the finest known 1975 ‘no S’ dime, if only for a few days,” Spivack said Numismatic news in 2019. “As the owner of the unique 1976 ‘no S’ silver Eisenhower dollar, … I have always dreamed of owning the 1975 ‘no S’ dime as well. That dream became reality for me!”