Came across a reference to a 1974 south dakota commenorative dollar coin. cannot find any other reference to it. it anyone can point me in the right direction or provide some pics for me i'd be most appreciated. sos
Howdy sosdog - Welcome to the Forum !! There is no such US coin. What you have is known as a silver round ( only assuming it is silver it may be base metal ) that was produced by a private company.
I would think that it is not likely to be a silver round, but from one of many political entities (city, county, state, etc.) that issued anniversary or promotional tokens. Brass seems to be the most common metal for that type of token. These pieces were distributed at fairs, expostitions, trade shows, and conventions, in conjunction with efforts to attract business, industries, commerce, or settlers to the issueing entity. Many displayed some given value, .50 seemed to be the most common from my experience, often accompanied by an "experation date" for that value. This type of item has little collector value, and typically the grouping of 1950 to date pieces are valued at a dollar or less. This type of thing is often found in "junk" token lots on ebay, so if you wish to purchase one, you will likely have to spend considerable time viewing auctions before locating one. Welcome to the forum sosdog.
Cote lists a 1974 "coin" issued for SD by the Lombardo mint. The primary design feature is a gold miner and is made of nickel silver (no silver). It is a $1 denomination and is valued at $3. This one is not extremely common and will not be frequently seen. There's a fair chance it had a mintage of 1,000 and a probability that it wasn't well distributed. Sometimes redeemed coins will be lost or destroyed so this could account for it's apparent scarcity. $3 is probably a fair price and such items generally sell for $1 to $4.
