But it's not the one you're expecting! I've wanted one of these for a while. The 1996W Dime was released in mint sets as a special bonus, and helped make the 1996 mint set one of the most popular in a long time. (The mint was using clever marketing techniques even decades ago). Unlike the more recent quarter, these were not released into circulation. It is expected that there is a very high survival rate from the original 1.45 million produced. This is the lowest mintage non-proof Roosevelt in the entire series. All of this has combined to make the 1996W dime one of the most popular modern US coins. On top of all that... a very small percentage of these are found with prooflike surfaces. There have been 6714 graded by NGC. About 1% of these are designated as PL. Of those, only 11 have been graded as FT PL. The highest of these is 67 FT PL - so of course that's what I needed! I saw a good sale on Ebay, and combined with an Ebay Bucks promotion I pulled the trigger and added this NGC MS-67 FT PL to my collection. The surfaces are very PL, bordering on DPL but not quite. This is my first W mint coin, and I'm very pleased to call it mine!
Fun coin. It was smart for the mint to give it away with the sets. I bought 10 sets. I should probably dig them out and take a look.
Jason, When I saw the title I said to myself, "since when did the Mint make Franklin's at West Point?" All aboard the top pop express! Nice pickup!
The W quarters came out last year I was surprised to learn about the 96W dime. So in December, I bought a mint set with all the OGP including that dime for $19.50. Was pretty happy about it. I almost went with just the graded dime instead.
Nice coin, thanks for posting. I’m embarrassed to admit, but maybe it will be helpful to others, that for some reason I had lodged the idea in my brain that the devices of PL/DMPL coins required frosting/cameo surfaces (not really my area of focus), but I have now learned otherwise: https://www.ngccoin.com/news/article/6633/learn-grading-deep-prooflike/ https://news.coinupdate.com/deep-cameo-vs-mirror-1303/ Thanks for helping to teach me something new!
In 1996 the set was $8 from the mint. One of the few sets that actually increased in value over the years.
Haha, I think you've been away for awhile. I sold most of my Franklins. I'm full-bore into a Prooflike set now. See my main set here: https://coins.www.collectors-societ...SetListing.aspx?PeopleSetID=98228&Ranking=all