Three sisters from Ohio are benefiting from their deceased family member’s foresight as they have inherited a dime that their brother stored in a bank vault for over 40 years, and for good reason: In today’s money that little $0.10 piece is now potentially worth over $500,000.
The coin was struck as a proof coin by the US Mint in San Francisco in 1975, so it has exceptionally fine detail. But more importantly, it has a distinguishing error. Known as a “no S” dime, it’s missing the “S” mark usually printed on coins. There are plenty of Philadelphia-minted “no S” dimes, but only two known examples of “no S” dimes minted in San Francisco.
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The 1975 “no S” proof dime is extremely valuable to coin collectors. It’s so valuable that the only other known dime with that same misprint in existence sold at auction in 2019 for $456,000, and then it sold again months later to a private collector.
The three sisters were a part of a dairy farming family. In 1978, their now-deceased brother and mother bought the rare coin for $18,200, roughly the equivalent of $90,000 today. They bought it as a financial safety net in case things on the farm went bad. One could say that he bought it just in case the dairy farm spoiled, but I would not say such things.
Their brother kept the coin in a bank vault for over 40 years. The sisters were aware of the coin but were unaware of its value. They just knew that it had some value. One of the sisters—all three of whom have chosen to remain anonymous—said that her brother would talk about the coin all the time but never showed it to her and never spoke of its value. They didn’t become aware of its true significance until a man named Ian Russell brought it to their attention.
Russell is the president of a company called GreatCollections, which specializes in the auctioning of rare currency like this extremely rare misprinted dime. The brother reached out to Russell about seven years ago to tell him he had the other rare dime. Russell kept that secret to himself for all these years.
With their brother gone, the sisters have now put the coin up for auction. The dime is going to go on display at a coin show in Tampa, Florida, beginning today, Wednesday, Sept. 25. The auction will close in late October. You can bid on it here.
The two San Francisco “no S” dimes are the only two that collectors were aware of—but there might be more of them out there. So now would be a good time to smash that piggy bank.
