TWO RARE DIMES STILL CIRCULATING NOW WORTH $2 MILLION
Many people have a passionate hobby of collecting coins. There is an infinite variety, ranging from early American gold coins to silver memories preserved in time capsules. Historic coins can be worth a penny or very little, with values ranging from only a few times their face value to millions of dollars. Perhaps there are some coins in your car's cupholders or piggy bank that are the ultimate collectable in coinage. One of the gems to seek out is the 1894-S Barber Dime, a very rare and limited mint run of which only two are thought to remain in common use.
Barber dimes, so named for the mint's Chief Engraver, Charles E. Barber, were regularly struck between 1892 and 1916. But in 1894, something extraordinary happened. There were just twenty-four produced by the San Francisco Mint. They might have been made to make up a tiny deficit at the mint, or they might have been made as novelty gifts for the mint's financial types. It is also plausible that they were examining the coin-stamping dies. The mint's operator, John Daggett, gave three dimes to his young daughter Hallie out of the 24 that were struck. She kept two of them after he told her to hold onto them for their potential value. But she almost immediately spent one on ice cream.
Many of the 24 are no longer in existence today. They might have been melted down for the metals they contained, which rose in value over time, just like other coins from the same era. There are thought to be just nine 1894-S Barber Dimes left today. We don't currently know where two of those are. They might be lost to the earth or sitting in a secret cache in the home of an unknown person. The collectors have possession of the remaining seven. To find out if they have one of the lost minted treasures, anyone with an old coin jar should count their dimes. In collector's circles, if you find one, it's probably worth about two million dollars.