Coin collectors rarely pay big fees for modern money, but a supremely rare 1975 dime could be heading for a $500,000 sale this month.
The reason?
An error.
The coin was struck in a proof set in 1975 at the San Francisco Mint. It was produced with a die missing the “S” that indicates the coin was struck in San Francisco.
Reportedly, it was sold for $7 to a member of the public in a set of proofs.
A fine portrait of FD Roosevelt with a 10-cent face value and perhaps now a $500,000 price tag. Image courtesy GreatCollections.
Sellers GreatCollections describe the coin as “the major modern rarity of U.S. numismatics.”
This is the first time the coin has come to auction.
This particular error has been made six times.
Dies to strike coins at the San Francisco Mint were made in Philadelphia. In 1968 (dime), 1970 (dime), 1971 (nickel), 1975 (dime), 1983 (dime), and 1990 (Lincoln cent) a die without the identifying S was shipped and an unknown number of coins struck.
Of those coins, the 1975 is so far the rarest, with just two known examples. (There are a couple of dozen of the 1968 dime, and a few hundred of each of the other examples. Both extraordinarily rare by modern coin standards.)
The coin was bought in California by a collector who had ordered several sets of proof coins from the mint. She spotted the error on two dimes in her purchase.
She sold them to dealer Fred Vollmer, who sold one to a customer known only as Ruth E, via a mail shot to all his customers.
Ruth’s proximity to Fred’s offices in Chicago meant she got the post before many other buyers. The story is that she completed the buy just 20 minutes before another collector phoned to try to buy the coin.
The coin has remained in Ruth’s family, in Ohio, since then. It was extensively written about in 2011, but this is its first auction sale.
How much will it raise?
We have a historical guide.
Vollmer also bought the other error dime.
It was not publicly sold until 2011, when it raised just short of $350,000 at auction.
When its owner died in 2019 it was auctioned again, making $456,000 before being sold privately for $516,000 within a few days.
The Ruth E dime is currently at $295,000 in a sale that is due to end on October 27, 2024.
The top end of most collectibles markets are extremely resilient at the moment.
In 2021, a 1933 Double Eagle – the prized rarity in US numismatics, the country’s last circulating gold coin – realised just short of $19 million at auction in New York. A Half Eagle from 1822 made $8.4 million the same year. In 2021, an 1804 Silver Dollar sold for $7.68 Million.
But such sales are rare enough to make them difficult to predict. For example, it is very likely that this will be the only chance for most collectors alive today to own this extremely rare coin so they may spend even if they see no chance of the coin appreciating in value.
