The Coin Collecting for Beginners website (which I suspect has a bunch of useful information even if one is not a beginner) lists key dates in the Roosevelt series as 1949-S, with semi-keys in 1949, 1950-S, 1951-S, and 1952-S. There is also a 1982 error dime which was minted in Philadelphia, but does not carry the P mintmark, and it is suspected that there are less than 15,000 examples of this error. Edit: the entire article can be found here: http://www.coin-collecting-guide-for-beginners.com/roosevelt-dime.html
In term of key date....1949-S. There are lots of errors out there. 1946 DDO & DDR 1946-D Repunched mintmark 1946-S DDR & Repunched mintmark 1947 DDO 1947-S S over D & DDR & Repunched mintmark 1948 DDR 1950-D D over S & DDR 1950-S S over D 1953-D D over Horizontal D 1954 DDR 1954-S Repunched mintmark 1959-D Repunched mintmark 1960-D Repunched mintmark 1961-D DDR 1962-S Repunched mintmark 1963 DDO & DDR 1963-D DDR 1964 DDR 1964-D Repunched mintmark & DDR 1967 DDO 1968 DDO 1969-D Repunched mintmark 1970 DDR 1970-D DDR 1982 NO P 1983-D Repunched mintmark 1985-P Misplaced mintmark 2004-D Curved Image Proof 1950 DDR 1954 DDO 1956 DDO 1960 DDO & DDR 1963 DDR 1964 DDO 1968-S DDO & DDR & Repunched mintmark 1968 NO S 1975-S Repunched mintmark 1983 NO S
Here we go! lol Super low mintages for modern coins, the lowest being the 2008's at 745,000. Granted, all are in collector/speculator hands, yet the lowest mintages for anything pertaining to modern circulating coins, lower than clad and silver proofs. Someday, if/when Whitman, etc catches up, a hole will have to be filled. Hmm, will that increase demand? Of course that's just a SWAG, your entitled to yours and time will tell, there are no crystal balls.
Let's take a really bad date like the '71-P. They made about 163,000,000 of these so it's common as dirt, right? Well 160 million were made on regular presses and probably fewer than 10,000,000 could have graded gem by today's standard the instant they were made because of worn dies and poor stikes. By the time they were ejected into the equipment it was winnowed down to 8 million. But then came the real punishment; they were run down conveyors and dumped into bins and counters. Then they were put into bags and tossed around from point to point until they were mixed into the circulating coinage by 1975. Of course by the time the brand new coin hit the banks there were probably well fewer than a million gems left. But as unceremoniously as these coins were treated the unkindest cut of all was that collectors didn't care. They set aside a tiny percentage of this issue and the gems fared little or no better. Perhaps fewer than a couple thousand true gems were actually set aside. To these the years haven't been kind as owners were told by coin shop operators to "just spend them" when they were brought in. Fire, flood and loss has affected many of the rest. Sure there are about 75,000,000 of these surviving in circulation but have you taken a close look at these recently? Finding a nice attractive coin with minimal wear will prove impossible without a very concerted effort. There are a few hundred thousand mint sets left but only about 10% of mint set coins are very gemmy and 5% would go true gem. So there you have it. So long as the demand for the clads stays low the prices will remain low because the only true rarity is the '75 No-S. But there are lots of coins that are tough nice or tough with Full Bands. There are lots that have low mintages or poor survival rates and any sort of real demand would take them all off the market. How many people can own a '68 DDO when only about 6% of the half million surviving sets have one? Someday the day will come when there is interest in new coins again and this might include the older clads that have been around nearly half a century now. When it happens there will be even fewer of these coins because they ain't making 'em any longer.
Yeah, the roosie needs more than the 1996-W, they need a commemorative program to spark some interest. Although that's unlikely given the fact the quarter provides the most arbitrage (the difference between the face value and what it costs to produce) for the government.
2008 satin finish unc mint set coin. The satin finish began in 2005. These coins are recognized as a distinct variety, not at all like the business strikes found in pre 2005 unc mint sets. If you haven't seen the satin coins, check them out, they look like matte proofs. My pic is a satin finish quarter.
http://cgi.ebay.com/1968-D-NGC-MS66...mQQptZCoins_US_Individual?hash=item19ae855f7c I'd guess that something like this is a little rare ( I might have bought it if it were about half that price).
The lowest mintages were the 55-P and S, I think, but they are readily available. I've sold several on ebay for $3 to $3.50.
I will vote for the 2009 P & D business strikes since I don't have them yet. They must be the hardest tickets to get in town!
09 dimes - P -49.5 million, D -96.5 million, pretty low this year, I haven't found any yet. The nickels were low mintage also.
Hey; I'm primarily a Lincoln Cent Error collector, though I recently investigated a 1967 Roosevelt Dime I own, keeping it around due to my take that it was an excellent DDO/DDR specimen. The Coin Guys site of Bubba & Zemo presents it as #1 on their Top Ten List of Roosevelt 10c pieces with a value of $450.00 at MS63. Ya. Could've knocked me over with a feather. However, I haven't seen much in the way of the corroberating publicity you'd expect to find attached to such a valuable coin. Hope this helps.
