This dime is worth a gold coin.
Three Ohio sisters who inherited an extremely rare dime that had been hidden by their family for more than 40 years could stand to gain more than half a million dollars after the coin was revealed to be so rare.
The dime, struck in 1975 at the U.S. Mint in San Francisco, is highly valuable because it is one of only two dimes missing the San Francisco “S” mark, said Ian Russell, president of Great Collections, a numismatic specialist that is auctioning the coin online.
Many avid coin collectors have known about these two rare dimes for years, but their whereabouts have remained a mystery.
“It's been hidden for decades,” Russell said, “and most of the major collectors and dealers have never seen it.”
Another rare coin, missing the “S” inscription, sold for $456,000 at auction in 2019, then sold again to a private collector a few months later.
The San Francisco Mint produced more than 2.8 million of a special uncirculated “proof” set of six coins sold for $7 apiece in 1975. However, several years later collectors noticed that two dimes in the set did not bear the mint's mark, making them extremely rare.
Two sisters from Ohio inherited one of the dimes after their recently deceased brother, who purchased it with their mother in 1978 for $18,200, the equivalent of about $90,000 today.
Russell said his parents, who run a dairy farm, saw the precious coins as a financial safety net.
One of the sisters told Russell that her brother had often talked about the coin, but she had never seen it until last year.
Russell, president of the Irvine, Calif.-based company, got in touch with his brother years ago and realized the value.
The coin will be on display at a coin show in Tampa starting Wednesday before the auction ends in October, Russell said.
With post wire.
