Rare dime purchased by Ohio farming family and hidden for decades sells for $500,000 at auction

TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) — A extraordinarily rare dime whose whereabouts had been a mystery since the late 1970s sold for just over $500,000.

The coin, which was struck by the United States Mint in San Francisco in 1975, depicts President Franklin D. Roosevelt and is one of only two known to exist without his distinctive “S” mintmark.

Three Ohio sisters inherited the dime after the death of their brother, who had kept it in a bank vault for more than 40 years.

The coin sold for $506,250 in an online auction that concluded Sunday, according to Ian Russell, president of GreatCollections, an auction house based in Irvine, California.

The only other known example of the “1975 ‘non-S’ proof dime” sold at a 2019 auction for $456,000 and then again months later to a private collector.

The San Francisco Mint made more than 2.8 million special uncirculated “proof” sets in 1975 that included six coins and sold for $7. A few years later, collectors discovered that two dimes in the set were missing the mint mark.

Russell said the Ohio sisters, who wanted to remain anonymous, told him they inherited one of those two dimes, but that their brother and mother bought the first error coin discovered in 1978 for $18,200, which It would be equivalent to approximately $90,000 today. His parents, who operated a dairy farm, saw the currency as a financial safety net.