A rare dime hidden for decades by a family in Ohio has fetched more than $500,000 at auction.
The rare dime sold for $506,250 in an online auction on October 27 after competing for 212 bids, according to Irvine-based auction house Great Collections.
Minted at the San Francisco Mint in 1975, the dime is one of only two coins made without the San Francisco Mint’s letter “S” mark on the obverse, which has the face of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
The San Francisco Mint made special sets of more than 2.8 million coins in 1975 and sold them for $7. Years later, collectors discovered that two of the set’s 10-cent coins lacked the mint mark.
The parents of three sisters bought the first error coin in 1978 for $18,200. That would be worth about $90,000 today. The sisters said their parents, who ran a dairy farm, viewed the coin as a financial security for the family. After their parents died, their brother had kept the inherited dime in a bank vault for more than 40 years and the sisters later inherited the 10-cent coin.
Another 1975 dime without the “S” mark sold for $456,000 at auction in 2019. Then it sold for $516,000 to the same collector who bought the other coin on October 27, completing the only-one-version collection.
BY EUNYOUNG LEE, HOONSIK WOO [woo.hoonsik@koreadaily.com]
