What is a 1996 W Roosevelt dime? It's the only W mintmark listed in Numismedia. What is a 'w' mintmark and was it only made one year?
The mint director had this specially made only for inclusion in the 1996 mint set. Its purpose was two-fold; one to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Roosy dime and two, to thank mint set customers for their loyalty in buying these sets for years despite the poor secondary markets for them. They sold only 1.3 million of these sets which was very surprising. The W dimes were minted in West Point, New York and are the only circulating coins struck at this facility with the mint mark (they did mint quarters in the late '70's without a mint mark). Average quality of these is excellent but truly superb pieces are not a lot more common than other coins of this era. They wholesale at prices up to $14 but a quick sell will usually require some discount. 1996 mint sets are not complete if this coin is not included. It appears in its own separate pliofilm.
Good!!! That’s one smart thing – I bought two or three mint sets that year especially because of the dime. Still, 1.3 mil is a lot considering that all (or almost all) remain in collections in BU condition. It was a nice collectable, though, and a nice thing for the Mint to give us as a freebie. I wish they would do more of it. P.S. – I might be wrong but I thought WP also has been making cents over the past decade or two (unmintmarked, for circulation)?
Yes. It is a lot of coins so will never be a rare coin in the foreseeable future. But consider that when the population of the country was far smaller back in 1964 the '50-D nickel with a far higher mintage and number of survivors got up to $140 per coin in todays money. In those days there was much less concern over condition and this price applied to any unc coin. While the '96-W was well made by current standards the typical example will have peripheral numbers or letters which are virtually flat. Many modern collectors seek well made coins and the numbers of really attractive W dimes is much lower than the mintage. Also these coins have been appearing in pocket change since 1996 was around the ending of an era when real collectors didn't care about recent coinage. These sets were often bought by outsiders to the hobby who didn't really know what they had and might tire of the sets and spend the coins. Many mint set collectors at that time bought these sets simply to get the half dollars early in the year for their collections and immediately cut these sets up. About half of the W dime packets were placed in these sets right in between the plastic sleeves or the sleeves and the packaging where they were unlikely to be missed but the rest were placed in a folder in side the heavy packaging. These coins can easily be overlooked because they aren't heavy enough to cause the folder to fall out. If the owner doesn't know it's there or forgets than the coin can end up in the garbage with the packaging. The attrition on this coin is probably well over 3% while the '50-D had very low attrition. With a new generation of collectors coming aboard this coin will do much better if large numbers decide to collect dimes and include this in the set. In 1964 the Jefferson nickel was not by any means the most popularly collected coin. The current dime though has a great deal of chance to be very widely collected and has much going for it numismatically. Most of all is the fact that these coins are in circulation and are unmolested by collectors. There are actually rare coins like the '82-NMM and AU 1969 dimes there for any who would seek them out. There are some great varieties and the coins are available. With the huge numbers of people who might gain an interest it makes a 1.3 million mintage look far smaller.
Can you describe in more detail for thos ethat aren't as aware of this stuff waht a '82 NMM and an AU1969 dime's numismatic value is? Should I be looking for them in circulation. I swear I found a really nice lookin 1969 Rosie yesterday, but spent it because Numismedia didn't have any significant premium on it listed (well up to the grades I could see which do go up to MS60)....
In 1982 a P mint mark was inadvertantly left off of a single die at the Philly mint. There are apparently three die stages of this die pair. The first was a die trial that was likely no more than a few strikes. The dies are well alligned and the strike is nearly full. Something happened before the press went into production and the first few thousand strikes are weakly struck from misaligned dies. Most of these ended up in the Pittsburg area. The dies were then realigned and another larger quantity was struck with much better results and are referred to as the strong strikes. Most of these were released in the Sandusky, Ohio area. There are estimated to be about 10,000 total mintage on these but I've always suspected that this estimate is extremely low. I've seen strikes from worn dies and it's most unusual for dies to show such wear until at least 100,000 coins have been struck. Also there have been reports of these turning up in circulation ever since 1982. I've seen a VG. The 1969 was a normal mint run but these coins were horribly made and most went straight into circulation. There were nearly a couple million put into mint sets but the majority of these sets have been destroyed over the years due to lack of interest and corrosion. Even when these sets were brand new the vast majority of the Philly dimes were very unattractive because of excessive marking, poor strikes, and lousy surfaces. The coins were not struck with enough authority to completely obliterate all the scratches that were on the planchets so most are very unattractive. Rolls of this date are virtually non-existent because people simply did not save new coins in that era. If such a roll had come on the market between 1970 and 1999 there would have been a near certainty that it would have simply been used as change in a coin shop. But make no mistake, this roll was very scarce in 1970 and it's certainly no more common today. This means that a really nice attractive AU 1969 dime in circulation might be among the thirty or forty thousand finest of the date. Sinne AU's and XF's have become so infrequently encountered in circulation even a nice VF might be highly collectible to those who like nice strikes and attractive coins. Each date of all coins are different and there are certainly other highly desirable dimes that can be found in circulation from grade rarities to OMM's and doubled dies. There is a really nice DDO '68 that shows up with some regularity though it can't be rare since it represents about about 2% of mint set coins.
I don't collect mint sets, but picked up the 1996 set just to get a 1996-W to fill out my Roosevelt dime collection. The dime looks to be around MS-68 or so and from what the price guides say, it's worth more than I paid for the whole mint set.
The 1996-W dime is a neat peice becuase that is the ONLY dime with a W mint mark. I picked up my set after getting out bid on e-bay about 3 times. Speedy
I've seen only about 300 of these dimes so far so don't have a lot of experience with them. These came from only about eighty or a hundred different groupings so may not be a fair sampling and I'm still learning market grading so you may want to take this with a grain of salt. I'd say there were perhaps five pieces that were less than MS-63, 50 in MS-63, 140 in MS-64, 75 in MS-65, 20 in MS-66, 10 in MS-67, and 2 in MS-68. The MS-68 number I do remember. This is somewhat superior to most other dates in mint sets.
Interesting topic for those who collect circulating coins or ms type mint sets. I only collect clad proofs and silver proofs sets in OGP. But I will in no way offend collectors of mint sets since I definitely have seen many that are worth much more than any lowly proofs, including older pre-1964 types pure silver or individual coins in either strike--But for whatever reason this post caught my eye and so therefore I looked at NGC census, which should interest all of the postings so far on this thread regarding the dime, have a look--Not many have been sent in, and those with the FB are very rare--So therefore this coin is a rare peice IMHO
Most of all is the fact that these coins are in circulation and are unmolested by collectors. There are actually rare coins like the '82-NMM and AU 1969 dimes there for any who would seek them out. Folks, is this still the case nowadays for 1969 Rosies? Would this be based on the assumption that those Rosies have a full band, correct? Not sure how to assess and/or determine the rarity of those 1969 dimes. I've found, so far, three 1969-D Rosies from my pile of dimes. Any help would be appreciated.
Well.. none of these members on this particular thread from 2005 will be able to help you. They are no longer on CoinTalk. Oh wait.. @cladking is still around
@paddyman98, I wrote in this thread with the goal of bumping it so others can see this and chime in. Not expecting those from way back then to come out and post here. So, hopefully someone can jump in here with some answers and/or helpful information.
People still aren't "checking their change". When I started collecting in 1957 almost every coin in circulation had been screened for a rare date by dozens of collectors. There was no longer any chance of finding a 1909-S VDB. There wasn't even any chance of finding a '15-S buffalo in G condition. There were no coins older than 50 years. Today all the coin denominations date back nearly 60 years (at least) and are still almost untouched by collectors. There has been some increasing attention paid to these coins since this thread was begun in 2005 but still there are scarce coins circulating.
