Dimes Worth Money is an independent reference for US dime owners trying to determine whether what they have is actually worth keeping — sourced from PCGS and NGC price guides, Greysheet wholesale bids, and recent realized prices at major auction houses, not viral video claims or inflated dealer lists.
Who We Are
This reference started because one of us inherited a binder of old dimes from a grandparent's estate and spent two frustrating weeks trying to find a single source that answered a simple question: which of these are worth more than ten cents? Every search turned up either dealer sites with a financial interest in the answer or YouTube videos claiming Mercury dimes were secretly worth thousands. Neither was useful. We started logging auction results ourselves and cross-referencing them against published price guides — and eventually built this site around that habit. Our editorial perspective is shaped by the WORTH angle: most US dimes in circulation or inherited collections are worth face value or close to it, and we think it does readers a disservice to suggest otherwise. A 1964 Roosevelt dime pulled from a coin jar is silver, which matters, but it is not rare. We work to flag the specific dates, mint marks, and conditions where real premiums exist — and to say plainly when a coin is unlikely to surprise anyone.
Methodology
Every value published on this site is cross-referenced against at least three primary sources: the PCGS Price Guide, the NGC Price Guide, and Greysheet CDN wholesale bid sheets. For US dime series specifically — Bust, Seated Liberty, Barber, Mercury, and Roosevelt — we also check realized prices from Heritage Auctions, Stack's Bowers, and GreatCollections to see what coins actually sold for, not just what guides suggest they might fetch at retail. When PCGS and NGC diverge by more than 15 percent on a given date and grade, we flag the disagreement in the article rather than averaging the numbers away. When the most recent auction comp we can locate is more than eighteen months old, we note that the market may have shifted. For condition-sensitive US dime dates — the 1916-D Mercury dime being the obvious example — we break values out by grade band rather than giving a single figure, because a Fine-12 and an MS-63 are not the same coin in any meaningful sense. We re-check values after every major Heritage signature auction that includes a significant US dime consignment, and we review Greysheet revisions quarterly.
Our Standards
Our framing is built around what US dime owners are most likely to actually have in hand. That means starting from the realistic population of coins — the majority of Roosevelt dimes minted after 1965 are clad, common, and worth face value; most Mercury dimes in average circulated grades trade at or near silver melt; most Barber dimes are worn smooth and worth a modest premium over melt at best. We say that plainly rather than leading with the exceptional case. When we publish a value range, we identify which end of the range applies to a typical worn example and which applies to a certified mint-state specimen that most owners will never hold. We refuse to publish the kind of valuations that circulate in viral social media posts — the ones that claim any old dime with a particular feature is automatically worth hundreds of dollars. If a claim does not appear in a PCGS or NGC price guide and is not supported by a documented auction result in a primary archive, we do not repeat it. We also distinguish retail and wholesale throughout: a dealer offering 60 to 75 percent of retail is not lowballing — that spread is the documented norm, and owners deserve to know it before they walk into a coin shop.
Disclosure
We do not buy, sell, or appraise coins — this site is a reference, not a dealer, and nothing here constitutes an offer or a formal appraisal of any US dime you own; we do not accept paid placement for coin valuations or promote any auction house in exchange for compensation; we do not inflate value bands to suggest that pocket-change dimes or inherited silver dimes are routinely worth hundreds or thousands of dollars — when a coin is worth melt or face value, we say so directly; we do not certify coins — authentication and grading are the role of PCGS, NGC, or CACG, and we encourage owners to use those services for any US dime they believe may carry significant value before making a financial decision based on published price guides alone.
Contact
If you have spotted a value that looks wrong, found a recent auction result that contradicts something we have published, or have a comp from Heritage, Stack's Bowers, or GreatCollections you think we should include, the team wants to hear about it. Use the contact form on this site to send details — the more specific the date, grade, and sale record, the more useful it is to our review process.