Bill's double dimes
1875 MS

Owner Comments:

It is surprising that the Philadelphia Mint produced only 36,910 Twenty Cent Pieces for the denomination's inaugural year, 1875. Since the Philadelphia Mint was the head office, it might have been expected that the initial year's mintage would have been higher. This coin was created to "solve" a problem in the western states, however, so the thinking was probably that the demand for these coins would be limited in the East. In fact the demand was limited everywhere because citizens quickly confused the coin with the quarter dollar and summarily rejected it.

When I set out to assemble a set of Twenty Cent Pieces, I thought that the 1875-P in Mint State would be one of the easier coins to find. In most cases the first year of a new coin has been hoarded in some quantity. I soon found that this coin was much harder to find that I expected. I came up short when I spotted one on the Internet. The dealer had received 25 orders for the same coin! In other cases the coins had been dipped or cleaned and were not attractive.

I finally located this one in one of the Eugene Gardner sales. I paid a premium for the grade, but the coin turned out to be nicer than I expected.