Rare San Francisco Dime Sold For $1.9 Million A rare dime made 113 years ago at the San Francisco Mint was sold for a record $1.9 million in a sale arranged by John Feigenbaum, President of David Lawrence Rare Coins of Virginia Beach, Virginiaf
News-Antique.com - Jul 27,2007 - A New York banker has paid an Oakland, California collector a record $1.9 million to purchase a rare silver dime made at the San Francisco Mint in 1894, the highest price ever paid for a U.S. dime.
"It's one of only 24 dimes made at the San Francisco Mint in 1894. Just nine surviving examples are known today, and this one is in pristine condition, the finest known," said John Feigenbaum, President of David Lawrence Rare Coins of Virginia Beach, Virginia who brokered the sale. He also personally transported the historic coin from an Oakland bank vault across country to its new owner on the East Coast.
"The seller is Daniel Rosenthal, an Oakland business executive, who bought the coin in our 2005 auction for a then-record price of over $1.3 million. The new owner, who wants to remain anonymous, is a New York City investment banker who is looking to diversify his portfolio out of paper assets," explained Feigenbaum.
Rosenthal was represented in the $1.9 million sale of his dime by Mitchell J. Spivack of Wonder Coins in San Clemente, California.
Hundreds of thousands of dimes were made for circulation in 1894 by the United States Mint facilities in Philadelphia and New Orleans, but the few dimes made that year in San Francisco are legendary among collectors.
"The San Francisco Mint Director, John Daggett, apparently ordered only two dozen dimes to be struck there in 1894 as gifts for visiting bankers. He gave three to his young daughter, Hallie. Decades later she sold two to a San Francisco coin dealer and admitted she’d spent the third one as a child for a dish of ice cream," said Ron Guth, President of Professional Coin Grading Service (PCGS) in Newport Beach, California, one of the world's largest rare coin authentication companies.
PCGS certified this coin as genuine and graded it as gem-quality "proof 66" on a scale of 1 to 70.
