Why this unique Ohio cent sold for $50,000 at auction

Photo Credit (FreePiks)

Toledo, Ohio (AP) – Just over $500,000 was the sale price of an extremely rare dime whose location had been unknown since the late 1970s.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt is featured on the coin, which was made by the U.S. Mint in San Francisco in 1975. It is one of just two known to survive without its recognizable “S” mint stamp.

After their brother passed away, three Ohio sisters inherited the dime, which had been stored in a bank vault for over 40 years.

Ian Russell, head of the Irvine, California-based auction business GreatCollections, said the coin sold for $506,250 in an online auction that ended on Sunday.

The sole other known copy of the “no S’ proof dime” from 1975 sold for $456,000 at an auction in 2019 before going to a private collector a few months later.

In 1975, the San Francisco mint produced over 2.8 million unique uncirculated “proof” sets, each containing six pieces and retailing for $7. A few years later, collectors found that two of the set’s dimes were lacking their mint marks.

According to Russell, the Ohio sisters, who wished to remain anonymous, told him that while they inherited one of those two dimes, their mother and brother paid $18,200, or almost $90,000 in today’s currency, for the first mistake coin found in 1978. The coin served as a safety net for their parents, who ran a dairy farm.