By Allen Sykora of Kitco News
(Kitco News) – Mining company executives like silver’s future prospects due to the combination of investment and industrial demand, with some also expressing optimism about the gray metal’s future performance relative to gold.

Several shared their views with Kitco News this week ahead of and during the annual Silver Summit that has brought together investors, analysts, dealers and mining companies in Spokane, Wash.

“We think the future for silver looks quite encouraging,” said Thomas Parker, president and chief executive officer of U.S. Silver Corp., and also chairman of the Silver Summit. Like others, he cited silver’s dual role as an industrial and precious metal.

Silver prices were on the defensive Thursday as he spoke. “But when it has risen as rapidly as it has, I think it’s normal to have a pullback,” Parker said.

One of the noticeable trends within the industry in recent years, Parker said, is the increasing variety of industrial applications and rising use in the medical field due to silver’s anti-bacterial properties. This, and the advent of exchange-traded funds, has helped silver shake off the decline in demand from the photographic industry during the shift to digital-camera technology.

“Silver has not yet hit its all-time nominal highs from 1980…So we think the potential for silver to move significantly higher still remains,” said Greg Johnson, president and chief executive officer of South American Silver Corp. Many other metals, such as gold and copper, already have hit their all-time highs in recent years, he said.

Johnson said, there have been limited large silver discoveries in recent years, and this in turn means limited potential for companies to ramp up output in response to higher prices. “It takes typically 10 or 15 years or more for a big mine to go from discovery to actual production,” Johnson said. “So there is likely to be a lag, even if prices were to move significantly higher.”

Furthermore, Parker pointed out, most of the world’s silver is a by-product of mining for other types of metals. Therefore, changes in production of silver are not always directly tied to the selling price of silver itself.

Gold tends to get the most attention in the precious-metals arena, but in the weeks leading up to the Silver Summit, silver outperformed the yellow metal.

“The benefit of silver versus gold is the hybrid nature of it, having more industrial uses,” said Lorne Waldman, corporate secretary for Vancouver-based Silvercorp Metals Inc., China’s largest primary silver producer.

At the moment, both metals are being driven higher by investment demand as an alternative currency, he said. “But there can be times when there isn’t that huge currency demand,” Waldman said. “At least with silver, you have the strong industrial demand. That provides more of a base of long-term support. When you have both investment demand and industrial demand happening at the same time, you have greater upside potential.”

In the longer term, silver’s industrial demand may help the metal hold up better on downward moves for gold and silver, some suggested.

Prior to the recession, the collective industrial demand for silver was rising some 6% annually, said Phillips S. Baker Jr., president and chief executive officer of Hecla Mining Co. “We think it’s going to get back to that,” he said. “And because of the urbanization that is occurring in China, India and other developing countries, we think that growth rate will actually increase. “

Historically, Baker pointed out, silver has been known as a more volatile metal than gold. Being a smaller market, smaller orders can have a greater impact than in gold.

“I think over time, it will lose the downside volatility because of the physical demand for silver,” Baker said. “We’re not there yet, but that’s coming.”

When the 2008 financial crisis hit, silver fared worse than gold, Waldman said. But that was when industrial demand fell off sharply at a time of economic weakness in many Western nations.

Some executives suggested the gold/silver ratio could continue its recent decline. This ratio is calculated by dividing the price of an ounce of gold by the price of an ounce of silver, with a lower number reflecting a stronger showing by silver relative to gold. Historically, the gold/silver ratio has been mostly in a range of around 20 to 1 on the low end to around 80 to 1 on the high end, Johnson said.

Waldman suggested the ratio could fall to 50 to 1. It was around 57 early Friday.

“I don’t see any reason why at some point we couldn’t have 15 or 20 to 1,” Johnson said, although adding this may be some time down the road.

Meanwhile, Waldman reported that as Silvercorp mines in China, company representatives are noticing an increase in demand from Chinese investors. The precious metal has become more available as the government moves to encourage such investment, he explained.

“If you go back three years, the average Chinese person couldn’t buy silver as an investment,” Waldman said. “Now, they can…We’ve sent our staff into stores to actually witness (this). Yes, people are buying as an investment. You read about it anecdotally. I think it bodes well for the entire industry to have a market like China all of a sudden look at silver as a new investment opportunity.”

Bullion UpdateProvided by A-mark Precious Metals, Inc  Thursday, October 21, 2010 Previous Day
	Gold	Silver	Platinum	Palladium
High	$1,347.60	$23.92	$1,687.40	$591.00
Low	$1,330.60	$23.29	$1,657.50	$569.20
Close	$1,343.30	$23.84	$1,684.80	$590.65
Premiums (Indications Only)
			Bid	Offer
1 oz Eagle Gold (2010)			$30.00	3.50%
1 oz Maple Leaf Gold (2011)			$9.00	2.50%
1 oz Krugerrand			$15.00	$35.00
1 oz Gold Bar			($3.00)	$18.00
90% Silver Bags			($0.50)	$0.10
1 oz A-Mark Silver Rounds			$0.00	$0.70
100 oz JM/ EN Silver Bar			($0.05)	$0.50
Commentary
After the run up that precious metals have seen over the past three months, a Chinese interest rate hike on Tuesday was the catalyst for the overdue sell off and profit taking. Even with gold losing $40 and silver $1.00 respectively the downward trajectory once again appears to be short lived. Whereas in an ambivalent market such a sell off might cause continued liquidation we saw a modest recovery in all four metals on Wednesday which speaks to just how strong the markets really are. As further signs point to a weak and sluggish economy the Federal Reserve announced that 7 of the bank’s 12 regions reported only moderate growth in business activity and growth actually slowed in the Dallas and Atlanta regions over the last quarter. This led to a 1.30 percent decline in the USD Index, the Euro once again flirting with 1.40 and the markets expecting a stimulus package to emerge sooner than later.In the short term we look for gold to test resistance at the 5 day moving average of $1,359.70 with support expected at the 21 day moving average of $1,334.90 and the Tuesday low of $1328.00.  Silver will find short term resistance at the 5 day moving average of $24.14 but we expect the market to target the “double top” at $24.50.  Support in silver lies at $23.70 and $23.40.On the economic calendar look for Initial Jobless Claims to be released at 8:30 AM EST and Leading Economic Indicators to be released at 10:00 AM EST, both should add to the markets intraday volatility.

 

What’s It Worth? How dealers determine the value of a Rare Coin.

Article courtsey of CoinLink.com

Doubling the Value of Silver        By: Richard Daughty, The Mogambo Guru

– Posted 20 October, 2010 | Share this article| Discuss This Article – Comments: 1 Source: SilverSeek.comWith gold and silver going up in price like they are, I spend a lot of time secluded in the Big Mogambo Bunker (BMB), greedily calculating my profit with each little up-tick in price. I am so delighted that I alternate between, on the one hand, happily dreaming of happier days to come when silver and gold have gone up so much in the roaring inflation caused by the Federal Reserve creating so much money that I will have made So Freaking Much Money (SFMM), then, on alternatively, dreading the hyperinflation caused by the Federal Reserve creating so much extra money that it causes societal breakdown in a bleak and horrific post-apocalyptic nightmare of worthless dollars, violent clan rivalries, bloody warlords and weird alien invaders from some distant planet planting spores in our brains.As a true government-conspiracy nut, I am suddenly paranoid that I may have said too much already, and so please forget I said anything about any invaders from other planets, and to divert your attention, I change the subject to the gold market by loudly saying, “To show you the power of the gold bull market, the 1-month, 2-month and 3-month lease rates for gold are, and have been for the past month, less than zero! The central bank is, literally, paying you to lease gold!” As unbelievably rare and remarkable as that is, it is almost anti-climatic that the 6-month lease rate for gold is, heretofore remarkable, literally, zero. I stand agog as gold rises in price, rising, as it does, against that kind of incentive for the commodity-exchange insiders, who are massively-short gold, to lease gold – at a discount! – and flood the gold market with it, driving the price down so as to profit on their massive leveraged short positions. And what about silver, a third of the Brilliant Mogambo Investment Triumvirate (BMIT)? If you want a good forecast of silver, what better place to look than an outfit that calls itself SilverForecaster.com, and which has been correct about the price of silver going up, and for so long? I suddenly don’t know why I say this, because there may be other forecasters of silver out there, whose recommendations to similarly buy silver have proven also so presciently correct, and they, unlike SilverForecaster.com, may offer a newsletter containing photos of comely young ladies in various stages of undress, yet each with a look on their faces of “Take me and ravish me, my Hot Mogambo Stud (HMS)! Take me in your mighty arms and make me do naughty, naughty things all afternoon until your wife comes home!” Well, SilverForecaster.com did not want to get into this pin-up/soft-core porn issue with me, even though I think it is a great marketing idea, but sticks to the business at hand, which is silver, and about which they say that “the silver price has broken to new highs and is set for a significant run to much higher levels with expectations to hold new high levels at around $24-$29 in the first run up.” Wow! I love this because it has that compellingly subtle promise of even more delicious profits in silver after a potential price increase of 30% to $29 an ounce “in the first run up”! There is a wonderful potential inherent in the phrase “in the first run up,” which, in this case means “a breakout of eventually $30 then $50 an ounce,” which is a doubling from here! Whee! And this is without mentioning the roaring inflation in prices that is guaranteed by the Federal Reserve creating so much money and the federal government borrowing that money and jamming it into the economy, which means that the value of silver will continue up and up from there as the dollar goes down and down from here. Jim Sinclair of mineset.com is not so reticent about talking about inflation, and reminds us that “No amount of dollars, regardless of how many trillions it may be, injected into the financial system will stimulate anything except the unavoidable result of Currency Induced Cost Push Inflation.” Then, on the other hand, I notice that Mr. Sinclair does not mention silver or gold, both of which will soar in price when inflation starts ramping up and up and up, and the Congress deficit-spends trillions more money that the Federal Reserve will create for them, making inflation in prices continue to go up and up. As if to break the impasse, Mr. Sinclair addresses my concern about the federal deficit-spending, and calculates that “If the running up of deficits keeps on at current rates, the interest on the national debt will hit $1 trillion” in the next four years!! Yikes! This means that, unless GDP and tax revenues start rising like crazy, in four years “every cent collected in personal income taxes in this country will be spent on interest payments alone.” Mr. Sinclair is too much of a gentleman to lay too much on you at one time, and does not mention that the government collected only $1.3 trillion in personal and corporate taxes this year, which is not even enough to cover just the $1.72 trillion in deficit-spending, which is not to mention the other $3.5 trillion spent as part of the federal budget! Hahahaha! We’re Freaking Doomed (WFD)! The reason I laugh so mirthfully while at the same time proclaiming our doom is because I will not personally be doomed, but instead I shall be rich because I am buying gold, silver and oil! Whee! This investing stuff is easy! And if you, too, buy gold, silver and oil, then you, too, will profit handsomely and say, “Whee! This investing stuff is easy!” Maybe we could do a little two-part harmony! Whee!

 

LONDON (Commodity Online): US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner helped bring down gold prices with his statement that the US is determined not to devalue the dollar to push up exports to China.

This has brought confidence among investors and they have stopped the panic rush to gold. Following this gold prices climbed down on Tuesday.

In a speech in Palo Alto, California, Geithner said that weakening the greenback to increase exports would not boost the economy. The United States and no country around the world can devalue its way to prosperity, said Geithner, which is in stark contrast to China’s yuan, which he said was significantly undervalued. 

Gold futures on the New York’s COMEX fell $38.10 to close at $1,334 an ounce, after setting a record high October 14 of $1,377.60. The US dollar reversed course abruptly, surging 1.7 per cent against a basket of six major currencies on Tuesday, after a 13 per cent drop since June.

The weak dollar has aided the US economic recovery because consumers are drawn to cheaper domestic products instead of imports, and American exports are more attractive to overseas customers, Geithner said.

Also on Tuesday, China raised its interest rates for the first time since 2007 to curb inflation, but many investors fear the move will impair the growth of the world’s second largest economy.

Uncertainty over the Chinese economy and lingering concerns about the US mortgage market led many investors to pour into the safety of US treasury securities. The flight to quality into treasuries both fueled the increase in the value of the dollar and shifted investors’ focus away from the metals market. 

According to analysts, the gold market is in the first stages of a long-awaited correction and it would not be surprising to see prices fall to as low as $1,200 an ounce.

 

Rare coin is highlight of years of searching

By Sid Witherington

I metal-detect primarily for Civil War artifacts but I like to find coins also. I do not metal-detect specifically for coins but if I find a Civil War camp, I will probably find a few coins and they will be old. The older the coin the more valuable they usually are. The holy grail of coins are gold coins. I have been metal detecting 21 years and I have only found two gold coins and both of them were in Civil War camps.

I found the first in the middle of Germantown in a Civil War camp which extended on the both sides of the road. I dug 1,000 bullets, four belt plates, and dozens of buttons from this area. I found coins from the Civil War period and before, one was an 1842 two and a half dollar quarter eagle only one inch deep in the ground with no mint mark. I was ecstatic even though the date was hard to read.

The second gold coin I dug is the artifact of the month and will be the best coin I probably will ever find. I found this coin when a Victorian house was demolished and the area was bulldozed for a future business.

I got permission to metal detect this property near Collierville hoping to find some Civil War artifacts or even some turn of the century items.

The house was in an area where Civil War artifacts had been found, which is all along Highway 72 from the Collierville city limits to Piperton.

I found several dozen bullets and a few buttons plus a medical syringe, a silver ring, and three silver coins in one hole from the late 1800s. I then moved on to greener pastures closer to Moscow, Tennessee. About two weeks after I gave up on the Collierville site one of my friends, a fellow relic hunter, metal-detected the property and called me. He had found three bullets and a button. I was happy for him but I am a very competitive person, so I went back to the site to see if I had left anything else. Two feet from where my friend had dug a hole I found my best coin.

The gold coin was only two inches deep in the bulldozed ground and when I had it in my hand it took me a minute to realize it was gold. I could not read the mint mark on back because I did not have on my reading glasses. I went to my car, got my glasses and saw the “C” mint mark and I was not familiar with it. When I got home I researched it and was amazed to find it was an 1848 five-dollar gold half eagle minted in Charlotte, North Carolina and very rare.

In 1788 Conrad Reed found a shiny 17-pound rock in Cabamus County, North Carolina and used it as a door stop for years before his family found out it was gold. This started the first gold rush in United States history while George Washington was President. In the years that followed several sites in the South produced gold. Before the 1848 gold strike in California gold mining was the second biggest employer next to farming in the South.

The problem with finding gold in the South was the nearest mint was in Philadelphia and getting the raw gold to the mint and back was a real problem. The roads were mainly Indian trails and there was always the danger of bandits and Indians along the way. After it got to the mint it was months before it was transformed into coinage and then it had to travel back along the same dangerous route back to the owners.

Under pressure from many sources the federal government on March 3, 1835 passed an act establishing mints at Charlotte, N.C., Dahlonega, Ga. and New Orleans, La. The Charlotte mint produced coins from 1838 to the Civil War. No coins bigger than a five-dollar gold piece were ever produced there. North Carolina seceded from the Union on May 21, 1861 and shortly afterward the Confederacy seized the mint and that ended the production of coins from that facility. After the war the mint building was used as a assay office and later it was turned into North Carolina’s first art museum.

Gold mining went on in North Carolina until the closing of the last mine in 1999.

All Charlotte gold coins are rare — only one percent of these coins still exist today. To have one of these coins, especially in perfect condition, is the find of a lifetime for a relic hunter. I will always remember how that coin came out of ground shining in perfect condition. Now the site is a huge parking lot, but I have the satisfaction of knowing I saved this rare and historic artifact from modern progress. I will share it with my students at Germantown High School and with all those who view my collection at the various events I attend every year.

Knowing about the past helps prepare one for the future. Please help support the creation of a Germantown Museum.

By Tom LaMarre, Coins Magazine October 19, 2010

The U.S. Mint has struck billions of dimes in the past two centuries, from the original Flowing Hair version of the 1790s to today’s Roosevelt dime. Unquestionably, however, the greatest dime of all is the 1894-S Barber dime.

Coin dealer B. Max Mehl called the 1894-S dime “the rarest U.S. dime and probably the rarest small silver coin in the world.”

Only 24 examples were struck, for reasons which have been the subject of conjecture and speculation almost from the time they were “new.” Now there are an estimated nine survivors, any one of which is capable of selling for more than $1 million.

In July 2007, an 1894-S dime described as the finest known, graded Proof-66 by the Professional Coin Grading Service, sold for $1.9 million.

The Barber dime is named for its designer, Charles Barber. It had been around for only two years when the 1894-S dimes were struck. “The new coins out from the Mint this year have run against various objection based on aesthetic grounds, especially the dime,“ the March 24, 1892, issue of the Olean Democrat said.

The design may not have been an artistic masterpiece, but it did the job. By 1894, everyone was pretty much used to it. The novelty was gone, and so was any interest which might have been shown by hoarders.

The Barber dime, quarter and half dollar made their debut on Jan. 2, 1892. On Jan. 25, the Treasury Department ordered the Philadelphia Mint to suspend production of half dollars so it could focus on turning out more dimes. But the situation was only temporary.

The Treasury Department had millions of dimes in its vaults at the close of 1893. Demand for the coins was light, partly because of the Panic of 1893. As a result, dime production fell sharply in 1894 at all of the mints—San Francisco, New Orleans and Philadelphia.

San Francisco saw the greatest drop, even though the dime was the smallest denomination struck there. The San Francisco Mint had turned out more than 2 million dimes in 1893.

The financial panic that began late in 1893 changed everything. The Jan. 27, 1894, issue of the Woodland Daily Democrat joked, “Nowadays dimes are being drawn from circulation. At least the people who are forced into begging them report that to be the state of the money market.”

Because of the poor economy, the San Francisco Mint had 1.5 million dimes in storage at the end of fiscal 1894. That was on June 30.

In October, a newspaper reported Mint Director Preston had gone to Philadelphia to speed up the production of “fractional” silver coins—denominations smaller than the silver dollar. Demand was said to be greater than the supply available, especially in the West, which was served by the San Francisco Mint.

Nevertheless, San Francisco did not resume full-scale production of dimes until 1895, when it turned out more than 1.1 million. “Again, 10-cent pieces seem to be greatly in demand,” the New York Sun reported. Surviving 1894-S dimes have prooflike characteristics, something which is not unusual for coins struck from new dies.

The method for striking dimes had been described in a newspaper article several years earlier. First, silver bullion was melted into two-pound bars. The bars were then run through large rollers which flattened them into strips of dime thinness.

The strips were treated with tallow to prevent scratches. Planchets were cut from the strips and fed into the coinage presses by automatic machinery at the rate of 100 a minute.

The design and edge reeding were impressed at the same time, and the finished coins were dropped into a container and ready for counting.

Special trays were used to count the dimes. They had raised ridges, spaced at the exact thinness of a dime. The counter dropped coins into the tray and shook it rapidly to fill it and remove any excess dimes.

The 1894-S dimes were probably not subjected to such casual treatment. Although the two dozen examples were listed in the Mint director’s annual report, they attracted little attention. Most collectors were interested only in a coin’s date and design type, not mintmarks. There were no newsstand coin magazines or newspapers.

Some collectors did write to the San Francisco Mint, asking to purchase examples of the 1894-S dime. But they were told the coins were not available.

The question is: What happened to the rare dimes? Several theories have been suggested. One of the oldest is that when the books of the San Francisco Mint were being closed at the end of fiscal 1894, a shortage of $2.40 was discovered. Supposedly, 24 dimes were struck to make up for the deficiency.

The California Midwinter International Exposition ran from Jan. 27 to July 5, 1894, in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. Newspaper publisher Michael deYoung came up with the idea of the fair. It included some exhibits from the World’s Columbian Exposition held in Chicago the previous year. Is it possible the 1894-S dimes were struck as presentation pieces for visiting dignitaries?

A more widely held belief is that the superintendent of the San Francisco Mint, John Daggett, ordered the coins struck. Daggett was born in New York and moved to California in 1852 during the gold rush days. By the 1860s, he owned the Black Bear mine and was active in politics. He was superintendent of the San Francisco Mint from 1893 to 1897. Daggett retired to Black Bear, Calif., in 1897 and died there in 1919.

Daggett may have ordered the 1894-S dimes struck for himself and seven banker friends. According to the story, each of the men received three dimes. Legend has it that Daggett gave his 1894-S dimes to his daughter Hallie and told her not to spend them because they would someday be valuable. But it was a hot day, and Hallie supposedly spent one of the dimes for ice cream on her way home.

A newspaper article that was reprinted in the February 1951 issue of Numismatic Scrapbook Magazine seemed to corroborate the story of Hallie Dagget’s dimes. The article reported the sale of two 1894-S dimes. It also mentioned the legend that in 1894 “a banker in Ukiah” gave three 1894-S dimes to his daughter, who visited an ice cream parlor on the way home. Ukiah is located about 100 miles from San Francisco.

Earl Parker, a prominent San Francisco rare coin dealer, purchased the two dimes mentioned in the Numismatic Scrapbook Magazine article. Later, the inscriptions on one or more custom-made holders for the 1894-S dimes perpetuated the legend of the Daggett dimes.

Hallie was 15 years old when the 1894-S dimes were struck—hardly the “little girl” of the ice cream story. In 1913 she became the U.S. Forest Service’s first woman “fire lookout.” Assistant fire ranger M.H. McCarthy recommended her for the job. In a May 1913 letter to Klamath Forest Supervisor W. B. Rider, McCarthy wrote:

“The novelty of the proposition which has been unloaded upon me, and which I am now endeavoring to pass up to you, may perhaps take your breath away, and I hope your heart is strong enough to stand the shock. It is this: One of the most untiring and enthusiastic applicants which I have for the position is Miss Hallie Morse Daggett, a wide-awake woman who knows and has traversed every trail on the Salmon River watershed, and is thoroughly familiar with every foot of the District.

“She is an ardent advocate of the Forest Service, and seeks the position in evident good faith, and gives her solemn assurance that she will stay with her post faithfully until she is recalled.”

Hallie worked at Eddy’s Gulch Lookout Station, atop Klamath Peak, from 1913 until the late 1920s. Her annual tour of duty began in June and lasted four to seven months.

Hallie died in 1964 in Etna, Calif., never having verified the 1894-S dime legend. The “ice cream dime” story was not popularized until the early 1970s, by numismatic writer James Johnson, who owned a worn 1894-S dime often cited as the “ice cream dime.” Gimbel’s coin department had purchased it over the counter in 1957. Johnson sold it in 1981 for $27,500.

Another circulated 1894-S dime turned up in circulation in 1911 and was acquired by a collector named Romito. It sold for about $35,000 in 1990 and is now graded About Good-3.

In a letter published in the February 1949 issue of The Numismatist, a Texas collector, Louis Goodwin, said his prize possession was an 1894-S dime in “very good” condition. Goodwin said he had owned the coin for more than 20 years.

The April 1956 issue of the “Koin Klubber,” published by the Honolulu Coin Club, reported an 1894-S dime had been discovered in Hawaii. Apparently the claim was not verified, but the idea was not as far-fetched as it might have sounded. San Francisco was the departure point for Hawaii-bound travelers, and it was in 1894 the Republic of Hawaii was created.

Possibly the earliest published reference to the 1894-S dimes, aside from the listing in the Mint director’s annual report, was an article in the San Francisco Call. It was reprinted in several newspapers across the country in 1895. Among them was the Nov. 8, 1895, issue of the Kendallville (Ind.) Standard:

“A Valuable Dime. Whoever has a dime of 1894, coined by the San Francisco Mint, has a coin for which $5 has already been offered, and when all the facts are known regarding its scarcity, it is not unlikely it will command a much higher premium.

“Inquiry at the Mint elicited the information that during the fiscal year of 1894 only 24 dimes were coined at the San Francisco Mint. How this came about was told by Chief Clerk Robert Barnett.

“‘All incurrent subsidiary coins, viz., those containing other than the design now being used, when received at the sub-treasury, are not again allowed to go into circulation, but are sent to the Mint to be re-coined with the current design.

“‘In the course of the year 1894 we received a large sum in these coins, but having an ample stock of dimes on hand, it was not intended to coin any of that denomination in 1894.

“‘However, when nearly all of this subsidiary coin bullion had been utilized, we found on our hands a quantity that would coin to advantage only into dimes, and into dimes it was coined, making just 24 of them.

“‘My attention was first drawn to the matter particularly by the receipt of a letter from a collector somewhere East requesting a set of the coin 1894. In filling this order, I found there were no dimes of that date on hand. Subsequently I received quite a number of similar letters, and in each case was, of course, unable to furnish the dimes.

“‘Plenty of dimes were coined that year at the Philadelphia and New Orleans Mints, but there are many collectors who accumulate the coinage of each Mint, as each has its distinguishing mark. Those coined here bear a letter ‘S’ under the eagle. New Orleans used the letter ‘O,’ and Carson City the letter ‘C,’ while Philadelphia coins are identified by the absence of the letter. “‘We receive each year about 50 requests from coin collectors for coins, mostly for those of silver.’ ”

Actually, there was no eagle on the reverse of the dime. The “S” mintmark appears below the wreath on the reverse. Furthermore, it was the Charlotte Mint—long defunct by 1894—which had used a single “C” mintmark. Carson City used a “CC” mintmark, the only two-letter mintmark in the United States.

The San Francisco Mint’s June 30, 1894, closing report on the amount of silver bullion on hand showed a total in an exact round figure. It was an unusual occurrence, to say the least. The San Francisco Mint had received dime dies in January 1894, but had not used them. Nor were any dimes struck in the final six months of 1894 for circulation, after the 24 1894-S dimes were struck to even out the bullion account.

The Sept. 12, 1895, issue of the Bucks County Gazette noted that “plenty” of dimes were struck at the Philadelphia and New Orleans Mints in 1894. But it said there were “collectors who accumulate the coinage of each Mint,” and the 1894-S dime was a rarity.

In 1900, Augustus G. Heaton bragged that he owned the only known 1894-S dime. “The San Francisco Mint takes proudly to itself the sensation of later U.S. coinage in striking but $2.40 worth of dimes, or 24 pieces in all, in the year 1894,” he wrote in the March 1900 issue of The Numismatist. “Of these, the writer possesses the only one known to the numismatic world.”

But another 1894-S dime was reportedly found in circulation later the same year. George Heath wrote in The Numismatist:

“J.C. Mitchelson of Kansas City, who has been spending much time in San Francisco, writes that he has uncovered an 1894-S dime. Mint authorities there inform him that while 24 were originally struck, only 14 went into circulation, the remaining 10 being re-struck. None remain in the Mint.”

The only corroborated information in the report was that 24 1894-S dimes had been struck and none were left at the Mint. Mitchelson bequeathed his collection to the Connecticut State Library, but apparently there was no 1894-S dime.

Writing in The Numismatist in 1928, Farran Zerbe repeated the legend the 1894-S dimes had been struck to balance the books:

“To close a bullion account at the San Francisco Mint at the end of the fiscal year, June 30th, 1894, it was found necessary to show 40 cents, odd, in the year’s coinage. The mint not having coined any dimes during the year, the dime dies were put to work, and to produce the needed 40 cents, 24 pieces were struck, any reasonable amount of even dollars over the 40 cents being readily absorbed in the account. It has been stated that at the time no thought was given by the Mint people that a rarity had been produced, it being supposed they would, as always in the past, be ordered to coin dimes before the close of the year. It so happened that no dime coinage was ordered and the unintentional error was not realized until the year’s coinage record was closed.”

Citing information he said was obtained at the San Francisco Mint in 1905, Zerbe wrote that “Mint people” obtained two or three of the coins and the rest were supposedly placed in a bag with other dimes released for circulation. The story was never verified.

Thanks to information unearthed by researchers and authors Richard G. Kelly and Nancy Oliver, it is known a total of five Special Assay 1894-S dimes were sent to Washington from the San Francisco Mint—two on June 9, 1894; two additional examples on June 25; and a last piece on June 28.

It’s possible some of the 1894-S dimes were kept as souvenirs by members of the Assay Commission, although assay coins were supposed to be melted after they were tested. Sometimes assay members substituted other coins.

Regardless of the real explanation for their existence, there was no denying the rarity of the 1894-S dime. It was the subject of an item in the Asheville Citizen, reprinted in the March 5, 1909, issue of the Greenville, S.C., Herald-Journal:

“Valuable Dimes. That dimes bearing the date of 1894 and the letter ‘S’ are indeed scarce is evident from the fact that although the Citizen some weeks ago published that a dime of this description is worth $50, no one has claimed to have located one of them.

“But sundry other dimes have been brought in by people who inquired if they were of value to coin collectors. Some showed the 1894 date but bore no S, while others were stamped with an S, but were not coined in 1894.

“The S indicates that the coin was minted at San Francisco.”

One of the earliest coin price guides to list the 1894-S dime was C.H. Shinkle’s U.S. Coin Values and Lists, a thin booklet published around 1910. Shinkle, a Pittsburgh rare coin dealer, valued the rare dime at $50 and included it in a “List of Rare U.S. Coins.”

In 1937 a reader asked The Afro American newspaper what his 1894 dime was worth. The answer? $200 or $300 if it was struck at the San Francisco Mint. However, the coin’s owner was advised that if his coin was from New Orleans or Philadelphia, it was worth only face value.

In 1949, a classified ad in the Chicago Tribune offered $500 for an 1894-S dime. Six years later, another ad offered $1,000.

Some unusual advertising campaigns in the 1960s kept the 1894-S dime in the public eye. In 1962, a car dealership’s newspaper ad said, “Find an 1894-S dime and this car is yours.” The car was a new Plymouth Valiant, and the ad stated, “This is not a contest.”

In 1965, Reno Dodge advertised a new car for only 10 cents. The catch was that it had to be an 1894-S dime.

In the long run, neither offer would have been a good deal. Today, the value of the finest 1962 Plymouth Valiant or 1965 Dodge is insignificant compared to the price tag for an 1894-S dime.

The amount of 1894-S dime information available has also increased since the 1960s. Based on the most reliable source—the chief coiner’s explanation in 1895—the 1894-S dimes were struck to use up the San Francisco Mint’s supply of silver for re-coinage.

Some 1894-S dimes were used for assay testing, refuting the theory 24 dimes were divided equally among Superintendent John Daggett and seven friends.

But it’s also certain at least a few 1894-S dimes were spent, including one that might have been Hallie Daggett’s famous “ice cream dime.”

The figures have changed—from $5 to more than $1 million—but the sums commanded by 1894-S dimes continue to make headlines.

Nothing less would be worthy of the “World’s Greatest Dime.”

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