How do I know and who do I talk to? 0

[raithier]

Hello all,

 

My wife and I found what I believe is a very valuable dime.  We don't know who to talk to and who to trust with this.  What should I do?  Should I call my insurance company? 

I am hesitant to send it anywhere, and dont really know who to approach with it. 

What do I need to do?

 

Thanks,

 

Mike -

 

[JKK]

I trust you want complete blunt honesty. Odds are enormous that it's not as valuable as you imagine, but it's not impossible.

We can help you if you post well-cropped obverse and reverse pics. If it makes you feel better, before you post them, you can park it in a safe deposit box. That way, during the time interval between you posting the pics and you becoming convinced by half a dozen people that it's nothing special, you won't be worried that somehow some hacker will find your IP and come hunting you for the dime. (If you are worried about that, post from a Wi-Fi hotspot near a coffee place or somesuch.)

In the vanishingly rare event that you might have a true rarity and my projection is incorrect (for your sake I hope it is), your next step would be to have it authenticated and slabbed by a grading service. In that case I would ask the grading service what they recommend. If you didn't plan to keep it, you could approach an auction house and ask for their recommendations/procedures; of special interest would be the moment and conditions under which it falls under their insurance. They'd also be able to handle sending it in for grading, so you wouldn't have to learn that whole process.

[raithier]

You are probably correct. It is a 75 dime with no mint mark. 

I believe they need to be proof, but I dont exactly know how to tell this. 

Thanks, 

Mike -

 

[Just Bob]

If you found the coin in circulation, and it does not have polished fields like the coin pictured below, it is not a proof. With only a few exceptions, coins minted for circulation in Philadelphia before 1980 were minted with no mintmark.

 

[raithier]

I dont believe it is. Thank you for indulging me and my wife.  It was fun for a night  

[RWB]

Well....celebrate! You won't have to pay taxes on that dime!

[JKK]

1 hour ago, raithier said:

 

I dont believe it is. Thank you for indulging me and my wife.  It was fun for a night  

No problem. The average non-numismatist has no easy way of assessing such a situation. Any reasonable person thinking they had a great rarity would start to wonder what one does in such a situation. It's not like that happens on an annual basis to most people. This is a very logical place to ask, as one might reasonably suppose that NGC would not tolerate its facilities used for predatory conduct. Glad we could help.