An extremely rare dime whose location is unknown from the late 1970s sold for just over $500,000 at auction.
Three sisters from an Ohio dairy farm inherited the coin after the death of their brother, who chose to keep it locked in a bank vault for more than 40 years.
The coin is so valuable because it has a flaw.
It was created by the US Mint in San Francisco in 1975 and depicts Franklin D. Roosevelt, but this dime is only one of two known to exist that does not have the distinctive mark mint ‘S’ above the engraved year.
The 10-cent piece 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 a 1975 dime without the ‘S’ mark sold at a 2019 auction for $456,000 and then again to a private collector months later.
The imperfect dime, on the left, is the one that sold for $500,000 at auction. The dime on the right is what almost all coins look like. It has the S above the mint date.
The San Francisco Mint manufactured more than 2.8 million special uncirculated “proof” sets in 1975 that featured 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 wanted to remain anonymous, but told him they inherited the coin after their brother and mother bought it for $18,200 in 1978.
That would be approximately $90,000 in today’s money.
The parents, who operated a dairy farm, saw the currency as a financial safety net.
Adjusted for inflation, the coin’s value appreciated approximately 455 percent in the more than 40 years it was in the family.
The 50th home run hit out of the park this year by MLB All-Star Shohei Ohtani was worth $500,000, the same as the imperfect dime, when bidding began on September 27.
The ball has since sold for a staggering $4.39 million after 40 dizzying bids.