Ohio Farmer Leaves Sisters 10 Cents as Inheritance: Coin Turns Out to Be Worth Half a Million

Three Ohio sisters who inherited a dime that had been sitting in a bank vault for more than 40 years knew it was valuable. But until recently, they had no idea how much it was worth, writes ABC News.

Photo: Krzysztof Bubel | Dreamstime.com

An extremely rare coin minted by the U.S. Mint in San Francisco in 1975 could fetch more than $500, said Ian Russell, president of Great Collections, an auction house that is currently running an online auction that will end in October.

Great Collections specializes in the sale of coins, banknotes, and other collectibles. Founded in 2010, the company helps collectors buy and sell valuable coins through its online auctions. Great Collections offers appraisal, certification, and sale of rare and precious coins, as well as other collectibles.

On the subject: Depression-era $10 bill sells for half a million dollars at auction

Great Collections auctions are held on their website and the company's services are popular with collectors around the world due to the convenient online access and transparency of the trading process.

What makes the Franklin D. Roosevelt dime so valuable is its missing San Francisco Mint “S” mintmark. There are only two such coins. One of them sold at auction in 2019 for $456, then resold again a few months later to a private collector.

Although serious coin collectors have long known about the existence of these two rare dimes, their whereabouts have remained a mystery since the late 1970s.

"They've been hidden for decades," Russell said. "Most major collectors and dealers have never seen one of them."

In 1975, the San Francisco Mint produced special proof sets, which included six coins and were released for collectors. These sets were distinguished by their high minting quality: the coins were specially processed and polished to obtain a particularly clear relief and a shiny surface. The coins in such sets were never used in circulation and were intended only for the collector market.

The six-coin set, issued in 1975, included:

1. 1 cent Lincoln
2. Jefferson 5 Cents
3. Roosevelt 10 Cents
4. 25 Washington Cents
5. 50 cents Kennedy
6. Eisenhower dollar.

A unique feature of these sets was that some coins, especially the quarter and half dollar, contained the inscription "1776-1976" on the reverse in honor of the 200th anniversary of the signing of the US Declaration of Independence.

The sets sold for $7 each, and the San Francisco Mint produced over 2,8 million of these sets, making them quite popular among collectors of the time.

Several years later, they discovered that two of the dimes in the set were missing mint marks.

According to Russell, the Ohio sisters who inherited one of the coins after their brother's recent death wished to remain anonymous given their sudden windfall.

They told Russell that in 1978, their brother and mother bought the first "bad" coin they discovered for $18, which would be worth about $200 today. Their parents, who ran a dairy farm, saw the coin as a financial safety net.

One of the sisters said her brother often talked about the rare coin, but she had never seen it with her own eyes until last year.

Russell, whose company is based in Irvine, California, said the brother of the coin's current owners contacted him about seven years ago and eventually told him about the dime but asked him to keep it a secret. When Russell revealed the coin's potential value to one of the sisters just a few years ago, she was surprised: "Is that really possible?"

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Now, Russell said, the artifact, known as the "1975 'no S' proof dime," will be featured at a coin show starting Wednesday in Tampa, Florida, and will remain there until the auction closes in late October.

There was a chance, Russell suggested, that other examples of the rare dime existed. They would likely be found only in 1975 proof sets, not in anyone's pocket change.

However, he is confident that this latest discovery will spark a surge of interest in rare coins and treasure hunting among pocket change.

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