Roosevelt Dime With Questionable Value

At the time that these words were typed I had before me a graded and slabbed (encased within a numismatic service's sealed container) United States of America Roosevelt dime.

It was graded MS-65 by Tru-Grade Service and its certification number was 017485. The "MS" designation refers to the mint-state condition of the coin.

This coin was minted in Denver in 1964, the last year in which reeded-edged coins, like this dime, contained 90% silver content.

What, pray tell, is the value of this coin?

Uninformed souls would place the worth of the dime at ten cents.

Others would pull out a rare coin guide, thumb through the pages...

And, after spending about 20 dollars of their precious time, would determine that a slabbed 1964-D Roosevelt dime graded at MS-65 is valued at $15.

But, there's more to this business of figuring out what the dime is worth.

I know, that the owner of this coin, feels like I do that the silver content alone is worth much much more than any of the rare-coin guides would suggest.

This dime contains 0.075 ounce of silver (Ag). While market silver prices may not reflect the true value of silver, the owner of the coin thinks that silver should really be at least 3 times what ever the gold price (per ounce) is at any time. If gold (Au) trades at $425 per ounce that would put the real value of silver at a little over $1300 per oz.

This little dime, with it's 0.075 oz of Ag, is worth at least $97 in precious metal content. Add the added value of $30 for being slabbed (protected) and graded and we're looking at a coin that could buy one heck of a nice silk Armani tie (if the owner of the coin could convince a clothier to the coins real value).

I know of an artist who paints the image of a ten or twenty dollar bill on a nice piece of paper and trades it (not as a counterfeit bill) but as an art work worth the face value of the bill that served as a model.

I further understand that many art lovers have readily accepted this art work in exchange for dinner, clothing and other goods or services.

So, what that slabbed and MS-65 graded 1964-D Roosevelt dime is really worth depends upon the parties involved. You might agree that it's only worth ten cents...

But don't try to offer that amount to my friend because I understand he won't seriously consider, especially now that I've made the coin infamous, any offer less than $2,500 (in 2005 U.S. negotiable currency)...

But then again, if you can draw a nice representation of a dime, and he thinks your artwork is at least equal to this blog's coin's value...

You might be able to make a deal...

From Sell Info Products Online dot com (www.SellInfoProductsOnline.com) and Basic Drum Beats dot com (www.BasicDrumBeats.com) this is LeBlond, Gerard LeBlond and I'll see you there.

To many people it is worth ten cents. Some might have passed it by thinking it was a lowly penny and not worth their time, energy or effort to retrieve it. But, not so fast... Not so fast. That 1967 coin contains 40% silver by weight. Other than the tarnish, it was in pretty good shape. The reeding on the edges were still sharp and distinct. If the rippled edges were more smooth than rough it would have indicated a lot about the dime's useage... (i.e. it would have been around the block a few times)... but this coin was in pretty good shape as far as weighing pretty much the same as it did when it was minted. So, what's that coin worth? 10 cents? Yes. Less? Yes, because many people saw it but didn't take the trouble to take possession. But let's take a look at it's silver content. If 10 of those 1967 dimes contain about 0.33 ounces of silver then 1 dime would contain 0.03 ounces of silver. And, if silver trades at $7.20 per ounce... That "40% Silver dime" would contain about 24 cents worth of silver. If you add the silver content to the denomination the coin is worth $0.34! But, if silver prices spike up to $1500 per ounce that lowly coin would be worth: $49.60! ($49.50 for the silver plus the $0.10 due to its denomination.) Will silver spike to $1500 per ounce? Someday it will, if for no other reason than inflation... but that could take many decades and... It's more likely that silver prices will surpass the $1500 mark when the collusion that's suppressing the price (keeping it from moving naturally based on free market forces) is removed... and when that happens... Watch out... and I hope you've got lots of 40% and 90% silver coins set aside... "From sell info products online dot com ( http://www.sellinfoproductsonline.com/) and Basic Drum Beats dot com (http://www.basicdrumbeats.com/) this is LeBlond, Gerard LeBlond... and I'll see you there!" P.S. So what's that dime worth? Let's put it this way... I've sent it off for safe keeping to a secret location... it'll make a public appearance when silver prices are above a certain magic figure. P.P.S. That magic figure? Let's just say that $1500/oz number is too low by at least a factor of 2.5...

Silver Is More Precious Than Gold

Gold is nice... it's shiny, it's heavy, it's pretty. But, if it was a choice between being paid with pure gold or pure silver I would pick the latter over the former and here's why:

Silver is rarer than gold.

Silver has medical and industrial uses.

Silver is consumed daily and it's raw bullion supply gets smaller and smaller.

But, since there's a big pro-gold lobby that continually expounds its beauty and desirability, and...

Since there is no comparable advocacy group for silver we end up with a "free-market disconnect" insofar as the more abundant precious metal has a higher per ounce price than the less abundant one.

If I owned a silver mine (forget silver mining stocks... I'm talking the actual chunck of land and all of the associated mining equipment) I would close it up... put a big fence around it with 24 hour a day protection and then I would go out and, while silver sells at less than $20 per ounce (it's currently trading in the $7 per ounce vicinity as of May 2005) I would buy as many 1000 ounce bars of the stuff that my company could afford to purchase and store those babies away in a vault.

Later, when silver prices hit $200 per ounce (and that day is soon approaching my friend) I would commence my silver mining operations because it will be economically advantageous to hold the silver in storage and mine for the raw material.

Face it... if you had to dig in the earth and pull up enough raw material to give you one ounce of pure silver it'll cost you a heck of a lot more than $7 per ounce to accomplish that task.

In fact, I don't think you could (on a small scale) isolate an ounce of pure silver for less than $50 even if someone gave you a hospital's year supply of photographic developing solutions (created when radiation departments and labs develop x-ray films).

Take home message: Silver costs less to buy currently than it is to produce... so, buy it up, stash it away and wait until its per ounce price passes that of gold.

When gold prices exceed $1000 per ounce silver should be about 1.5 to 4X more expensive per ounce. And when that happens, you will be glad that you stocked up when prices were less than $10 per ounce... like right now... so, start loading up... before it's too late.