Three sisters raised on an Ohio dairy farm were astounded to learn from rare coin experts that an incorrectly made 1975-dated San Francisco Mint dime purchased by their mother and brother 46 years ago for $18,200 is now expected to bring a half-million dollars or more at auction. The proof dime, mistakenly missing the letter S mintmark, will be publicly displayed at a coin show in Florida this week.
“The 1975 ‘no S’ proof dime is the world’s most valuable modern coin,” stated Ian Russell, president of GreatCollections of Irvine, California, the firm that will conduct the online auction in October.
Courtesy GreatCollections
“The sisters, who want to remain anonymous, recently inherited the coin after their mother and brother passed away and were very excited when I told them the potential value of this long-hidden numismatic treasure. The only other known example of a 1975 no S proof dime sold for $456,000 five years ago,” Russell explained.
“As an exorbitant purchase at the time for a small farm family, our parents thought of it as their ‘safety net’. Our brother thought of it as the pinnacle of their collection,” stated one of the sisters who often heard her brother talk about the rare dime but saw it in person for the first time last year.
In 1975, the San Francisco Mint produced 2.84 million proof sets that originally sold for $7 apiece to collectors. Proof coins are specially struck with sharply defined details and mirror-like reflective surfaces.
Courtesy GreatCollections
There were six coins with a combined total face value of $1.91 in each 1975 set and each coin was supposed to have a distinctive letter S mintmark for San Francisco. Subsequently, it was discovered that two of the 1975 proof dimes depicting President Franklin D. Roosevelt did not have the S mintmark. No other examples of the error have been reported since 1979.
The sisters’ heirloom dime was kept in pristine condition in an Ohio bank vault for over 40 years and only a few people knew the family owned it, according to Russell. It has now been independently authenticated as genuine by Professional Coin Grading Service and described as Proof-67 on the standard numismatic grading scale of 1 to 70.
“The rare no S 1975 San Francisco proof dimes should not be confused with the 585 million dimes struck for circulation at the Philadelphia Mint deliberately without a mintmark that same year. Most of those Philadelphia Mint coins are worth only ten cents each,” explained Russell.
The coin will be publicly displayed at the Great American Coin and Collectibles Show in Tampa, Florida, September 11-14. The auction is scheduled for October 27.
For additional information, contact GreatCollections at 800-442-6467 or visit online at www.GreatCollections.com.
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