Three sisters to auction rare dime worth more than US$500,000

TOLEDO, Ohio: Three sisters from the US state of Ohio who inherited a dime kept in a bank vault for more than 40 years knew it had some value. But they had no idea just how much until just a few years ago.

Three sisters from Ohio, in the US, inherited a dime coin that was kept in a bank vault for over 40 years. They knew the coin had some value, but they never imagined just how much until recently.

The extraordinarily rare coin, minted in San Francisco in 1975, could fetch over US$500,000, according to Ian Russell, president of GreatCollections, a currency specialist handling an online auction that will conclude in October.

What makes the dime, featuring President Franklin D Roosevelt, so valuable is the missing “S” mint mark for San Francisco, making it one of only two such coins known to exist. The other coin sold at a 2019 auction for US$456,000 before being sold again months later to a private collector.

While serious coin collectors have known about these two rare dimes for a long time, their whereabouts have remained a mystery since the late 1970s.

“They were hidden for decades,” Russell said. “Most major collectors and dealers have never seen one.”

The San Francisco mint produced over 2.8 million special uncirculated “proof” sets in 1975, each containing six coins and sold for US$7. A few years later, collectors discovered that two dimes from the set were missing the mint mark.