Look what I found in this box of DIMES left behind in a storage unit! (Looking for dime ERRORS & VALUABLE dimes)
âš¡TIMESTAMPS FROM THE VIDEOâš¡
00:00 INTRO about valuable dimes
00:23 What to look for when searching thru dimes
00:48 Why & how to use a coin scale
02:25 Silver dimes explained
02:36 Dates when silver dimes were made
02:49 1965 silver dime errors to look for
03:13 Why you need a coin loupe or magnifier
04:03 Surprise…a 1992 penny error explained!
05:41 Another surprise… the value of a copper penny!
08:43 Valuable dime errors
10:39 Off-metal dime errors explained
14:51 Off-center dimes to look for
17:39 SUMMARY of the valuable dimes found
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TRANSCRIPT:
Hey there! This is Josh with The Fun Times Guide, and today we’re going to go through a box of dimes.
Now I must say I’ve gone through a lot of different vessels of coins before but never a box of dimes.
The story behind this one is very intriguing…
My sister-in-law happened to find this box of dimes going through a storage unit. And neither she nor I have any idea what’s inside.
My hope is to locate some silver dimes… maybe an off-center dime… or other kind of error or variety (like the 1982 no mintmark Roosevelt dime).
I’d be even happy to find some world coins — like a Canadian dime or other dime-sized but non-U.S. coins.
So we’ll see… Let’s go ahead and dive in and check out this box of dimes together!
Let’s go ahead and consider a couple tools that we will need on this journey.
The first thing here is a coin scale. Now, as you see we have 2 digits on here. The one on the left provides whole gram readouts. Okay? The one on the right is a tenth of a gram readout. Now, why is that important? Why don’t you just use a scale that has just one readout? You know… 2 grams… 3 grams… 4 grams… you name it.
Well, in the case of US silver dimes, they weigh on average 2.5 grams. Whereas a clad dime weighs 2.27 grams.
Now you might say… Okay, well if that’s the case then, then a scale that provides an integer readout only will round UP the silver dime from 2.5 to 3 grams. Whereas the clad dime is rounded DOWN from 2.27 to about 2 grams.
That’s great if every dime weighs exactly what it’s supposed to weigh. But that’s not the case!
First of all, consider that there is wear. And wear will actually remove metal from a coin’s surface and thus lower its weight. But also you have something called tolerances. And tolerances are legally allowed variances in the weight of a coin.
For the case of silver dimes, the standard weight is about 2.5 grams. But on the low side, an uncirculated silver dime can weigh as little as about 2.43 grams OR as much as 2.62 grams.
Whereas a clad dime can weigh as little as about 2.17 grams up to 2.35 grams.
So even in the case of a silver dime, you might still have a basically a “false negative” where the scale tells you (if it’s a scale that has only energy units)… Let’s say that dime weighs 2.49 grams. It could be a totally normal silver dime — but it still got rounded down to 2 grams.
Now we do know that silver dimes in the US were produced up through 1964. Whereas clad dimes started in 1965. So you could say, “Well okay, if you know what year the dime is, then you can tell if it’s silver or clad.” But again it’s NOT that easy.
There’s actually one VERY valuable and VERY rare error among 1965 dimes — which were supposed to be clad dimes, but a few actually were made on leftover silver planets.
So there actually ARE a few 1965 silver dimes. And for that you want a scale that provides readouts in both the whole integer units and tenth of a gram units.
Along with that, we also have here a coin loupe — which is a coin magnifying glass.
This provides magnification up to 10x — it’s a great level for looking for little errors and varieties (like die cracks, or like trying to discern the mint mark in the case of a blobby mint mark which could happen through wear or die deterioration or something like that).
So we’ll need BOTH of these tools to help get us through this journey here on this box of dimes.
And as you see here, this box of dimes is probably like a quarter… maybe a third full.
I am hoping that this yields at least one or two interesting finds. I have no clue what’s in here. So we’ll discover together exactly what’s going on.
And again, this is from an unsearched storage unit. And this is the dime you saw run off — it landed inside the scale’s little lid here.
Oh okay, here’s our first little surprise! We have a 1992 Lincoln cent.
Ooh… now this is actually a good year for varieties! Why is that? Because of the very popular Close AM variety.
Now, what you’re looking for in the Close AM case — if I can find the coin — is you’re looking to see if the bases of the letters “A” and “M” in “America” touch.
Now I can tell… hang on a minute here I don’t know if you can see this well or not… Oh my gosh. Okay, that’s probably pretty good. You can tell there’s a space at the base or bases of the “A” and “M”.
Yeah, this is… there we go… okay… IF the bases of the “A” and “M” were touching, this would be a coin worth potentially thousands of dollars.
Both the 1992 Philadelphia (which has no mintmark) AND the 1992 Denver (or “D” mintmark) is known for that variety.
Unfortunately, this is just a regular spendworthy Lincoln cent. But do keep an eye on your 1992 Philadelphia (no mintmark) and D (for Denver) Lincoln cents to see if they have the Close AM variety — which again is where the base of the “A” and “M” are appearing to touch each other.
So that’s a coin worth spending right there.
Oh we have a 19… another penny in here… 1961 Denver penny.
So this is just… I don’t see any signs of any errors or varieties here at all. It is a COPPER penny though.
It’s what I call a “copper keeper.” These are worth 3 to 4 cents just for the metal value alone.
And here’s a good opportunity to show you how these scales work. So…
A copper penny weighs (“specs”) at about 3.1 grams. They can go from like 3 grams to 3.2 grams. A worn… like a heavily worn copper penny can weigh 2.9 grams.
We’ll see if this scale provides a readout of 3.2 grams. It’s 3.1 — so it’s basically a standard weight copper penny.
Whereas a zinc penny weighs 2.5 grams — as it should. However, if this scale provided just an integer readout… both this zinc dime and this copper penny would yield a 3 gram readout due to rounding. Okay?
So this is why I always say if you’re going to buy a coin scale, buy the right kind and purchase one that has at least a tenth of a gram readout. This is very important for telling apart 1982 copper and zinc pennies — the 1982-D small date copper penny which is a very rare variety, versus the zinc iteration which is basically worth face value.
But I’m glad that these two pennies were here so I can show you why having a scale like this is so important.
Having said that, let’s continue our journey here through dimes. Which, I think, this is all we have now ARE dimes.
And so far I don’t see any… Oh we have a nickel! What’s this nickel? It is a 1976-D nickel. There’s no silver in this. I don’t see any signs of any errors or varieties. So this is a spendworthy coin.
So, so far we have 6 cents in coins that my sister-in-law can use as pocket change AND a 3 to 4 cent copper penny.
We have here… we have another penny… this is a 19… My gosh what year is that? I can’t even tell. Let’s get our… Let’s get our handy dandy loupe out here and see what it says it’s a 19… You probably can’t tell on your side there… 96 penny.
Though I don’t know if you can tell or not… I’m trying to get this so you can see here… Oh my gosh the glare is just not behaving with me at all.
But it IS a 1996 penny. It’s a zinc penny. And it is spendworthy!
So now we have 7 cents of spending money and 3 to 4 cents of copper.
Alright, so we have here some dimes that are discolored like this… What is this… A 1984 Philadelphia dime.
A lot of folks ask me about their… And speaking of dirt by the way… Pardon the dirt on my fingers. I’m not only a coin collector. I’m also a gardener. So despite trying to clean up, unfortunately sometimes my gardening hobby lingers into the next day.
So this dime here which I could see some folks asking about because… “Oh it has this weird rim error and it’s dark, so it must be a valuable error coin.” Well it’s not. That is a ding. That is simple damage to the rim. And this coin was probably exposed to the elements — maybe dirt, maybe some sulfurous fumes. This is just a discolored damaged dime, and it’s worth face value.
So I’ll put it over here in our spendworthy column.
We have here another… this is a corroded dime here for sure! My gosh. Let’s get our loupe out and make out the year: 1977. Again, I don’t know if you can see what I’m seeing here on my end, but the light is just not working well at all. It’s a 1977 dime. It is also worth face value. It is corroded. It has some post-Mint damage. It’s a corroded dime. That’s all it is.
We have here a 1983 Denver dime.
See that? Okay, now in this case… I guess this angle is really good for close-up shots. I could see some folks saying or asking me “Wow this is kind of an interesting looking dime! It has some darker coloration on it. It looks like silver.”
Well, we’ll weigh it and double check and see. But there are no known silver 1983 dime errors. We’ll go ahead and put it on the scale just to show you this is a clad dime.
Let’s see here… Yeah, 2.3 grams. It is a clad dime with what looks like some antiquing maybe — which is NOT. It’s just wear. It’s just the color that this coin’s picked up over 40 plus years in circulation.
All kinds of elements can impart darker colors. Or, in this case, like a silvery gray color that some might think means a coin is silver. This is why I always ALWAYS… and I’ve been 30 plus years in the hobby… I will always and only do coin roll / coin box / coin jar searches like this using a coin scale. So I can rule out any possibility this is a silver dime or some other kind of off-metal error.
That goes over there.
We have here ANOTHER discolored dime. This is a… What year and mintmark is this one? This is a… Let’s see… 1997 Denver. And this is just a discolored dime. I mean there’s… I’ve seen so many coins like this. You know, they look unusual. Some might think that they’re an error or worth a lot of money or some off-metal value — you know, a valuable off-metal error. But we’ll show you here on the scale… this is just a regular clad dime.
Oh you know what I did? I made this part of the tare weight. So I’ve got to go ahead and restart the coin scale of course without it on there.
And it’s a 2.3 grams dime. This is a regular clad dime. We’ll put it in the spendworthy column.
Alright. as we go through further here I’m looking for any signs of… I don’t know… anything weird or unusual.
My first goal is looking for any blatant errors and varieties. I’m going to turn them all over here to the obverse — you know — just to see here what’s going on. I mean that… it all… first of all I can tell these are ALL, as far as I can tell right here, all US dimes. No Canadian dimes. No Mexican pesos or whatever. These are all US dimes.
And looking at this here.. I can pretty much tell you a silver dime from a clad just by color alone. These look like they’re all clad dimes. Which I EXPECT.
It’s getting harder and harder to find… Unless you like… in this case… it was like a really OLD storage unit that my sister-in-law was going through. Generally, it’s getting harder and harder to find silver in random coin boxes and random coin collections like this.
I am curious as to why these are all dimes. Was the person who put this away a dime collector? Or were they sorting out coins by denomination? I have no idea the story behind that. It’s nevertheless very cool. I love doing this – it’s a cool way to enjoy coin collecting.
So, I think we’ve turned over… well not quite all of them yet… Hang on a minute. That one… is 1977. Let’s see, these all turned over. Oh, I see a few over here with the torch reverse.
Okay, now… Now I think these are all obverse up. Or as some would say, “heads up.”
Let’s get a closer look here at what’s going on. Do we see anything that stands out here? Any interesting dates or whatever? I mean these are all you know run-of-the-mill.
I do see a 1965 dime. See it right here? Now, right yeah… 1965. This I can tell is a clad dime because first of all the color screams clad. You see here on the edge… the copper center for the copper-nickel clad composition.
We’ll weigh it just so you can see it. This is in fact a clad dime. But I can tell you right now this is a regular clad dime worth face value. It’s circulated. Nothing stands out about it at least on the obverse side. I mean…
Reverse looks normal, too. We’ll weigh it. Let’s see… 1968 Denver, 2001, 1970, 1976, 1977, 1985, 1991. I’m looking for 1982 dimes.
This one’s a little off-center — not by a whole lot. It’s probably a misaligned die. That’s kind of cool. I’ll hold it aside — just because there is some minor collector interest in coins like that even with the minor off-centers and die alignment issues. There’s a collector base for that. So we’ll hold it aside.
1979… and 1969 Denver. I’m looking for ANY 1982s just to see if we have any no mintmark errors on those. And people have found, you know, valuable errors and varieties like that in circulation. So that’s why it does pay to go through, you know, change jars and such.
1967… it’s circulated. But it’s older these days. Here’s kind of another minor sort of off-center error. You can see that the rim is much heavier on the left than the right. I’ll hold it aside. You know, it’s such a MINOR off-center. I don’t think it would be worth anything for premium — but I’ll let my sister-in-law decide that for herself. If she wants to go, you know, pursue any kind of premium on that.
1972… normal year… normal strike. I’m finding NO… [that’s a 1969 Denver] no 1982s at all!
I guess somebody plucked through the ’82s in this collection here (in this box) — which I understand. I get it. I would do the same thing! I’m TRYING to do the same thing right here as you see.
So yeah, this is pretty much spending money it looks like.
1981 Philadelphia… so not ’82. But this is a 19… what was this? This is the same one I came across before the ’69 Denver.
This is a clad error coin and it has some light wear. Actually, some moderate wear. So it’s a regular spendworthy dime. It’s worth face value.
I’m going through one more time just to make sure I’m not missing anything. They say in carpentry “measure twice and cut once.” And I’ll apply here to numismatic terms: “Look twice and be sure of your spending money once — because you don’t want to spend by accident some kind of cool rarity or error or variety or what have you.
Is that a 2003 Philadelphia? Yeah. Well you know what my sister-in-law has here is a bunch of spending money — which is pretty cool for her!
19… yeah… 70… I saw that one earlier.
1977… 1970… 1992… 1968 Denver.
Well, there you have it!
We have here… Okay so just to kind of recap what we did. This is all spending money right here. This is all spending money — it’s held aside because it looked different or we had pennies or nickels.
This is a regular clad dime… 1983 Denver. It looks different. It looks like silver, but it’s not silver. We saw on the scale that it’s not silver.
This is just a dark (darkly toned, discolored) 1997 Denver dime.
This is a heavily corroded… What year did we say this was again? I’m forgetting now. Oh yeah, 1977 dime. I can’t even tell if it has a mint mark or not on it — I don’t think it does. But anyway, it’s worth face value.
The 1992 penny is worth face value.
The 1996 penny is worth face value.
The 1976 Denver nickel is face value.
We do have probably the best keeper, best find of all in this whole box isn’t even a dime! It’s this 1961 Denver penny which is copper and worth 3 to 4 cents.
And then we have over here these slightly — I mean VERY slightly — off-center dimes. This a 1997… what was that? “P” right there. Or I’m sorry… a 1991-P dime.
And 1996 — right? Was that right? I’m forgetting now. Hang on a minute. Let’s get our facts straight here…
1990 (sorry) Philadelphia dime.
These are very very slightly off-center. You might get a buyer who would find that interesting and pay a small premium.
So these I would say are the keepers from this whole box of coins right here. This 1965 dime as we weighed it, is a regular clad dime — it is NOT a silver 1965 dime off metal error or transitional error.
So that’s what we have!
My sister-in-law is probably what about maybe 10 bucks richer… 9 bucks richer for it! Not counting maybe the little premiums here on the copper penny and the two off-center dimes.
So there you have it! This was pretty fun. You know what.. nothing major was found in this box of dimes. It’s still a lot of fun to go through because, of course, the thrill of the search. You know what you’re going to find in something like this.
And we actually did land a couple… or I’d say a few (three here, that’s a few) novelty pieces. I mean, again… a copper penny, a couple very minor off-center dimes, and then some cool pieces worth talking about with the corroded dimes and the darker dime there — which, you know, we could say look like silver. Which, of course, you know it’s not due to the scale.
But this is a typical… I would say anyway in my experience… a typical change jar (or change box in this case) search session. We’ve got a few keepers and a bunch of spending money.
I’d love to know if you’ve gone through boxes of dimes or other boxes of coins before and what you found. Let me know in the comments below. Or if you happen to see something on this video that you wanted to ask me about, drop me a question below and I’ll be happy to answer it.
If you like the video, please like it and share it. And thank you for watching this video! This has been Josh with The Fun Times Guide wishing you very happy coin collecting. Take care till… next time.
