A coin I found outside

[Big Frank]

I think it was a couple months ago when I found a coin in the driveway, just on the neighbor's side of the line. It was so dirty and grungy looking, I thought it was a penny and stuck it in my pocket. It was actually a 1918-D Mercury dime, minted the year my dad was born. I may have mentioned this before. Cleaning them ruins the value of old coins, but I cleaned it up anyway. It's badly worn, but looks even worse in the pictures than IRL. These dimes are 90% silver and 10% copper. Even if it doesn't have any collector value, it's still worth ~$3.50 because of the silver in it. They were minted from 1916–1945. The second pic, from Wikipedia, is what a really good one looks like.

The third pic is a 2016 gold commemorative version made of 0.10 troy oz. of  0.9999 fine (99.99% pure) 24K gold, to celebrate 100 years since the Mercury dime came out. The Mint released a centennial version in gold of the Mercury dime on April 21, 2016, sold through the Mint's official website. Demand was so high that orders were no longer able to be placed within 45 minutes of the coin becoming available. They were a special strike and most coins were in SP-70 (Specimen) perfect condition. Specimen and Proof Like (PL) coins are better than regular Mint State (MS) coins, but not as good as Proof (PF) coins. They sounded like a great investment to me, so I bought 2 of them. Unfortunately I lost money on them when I sold them. I paid $440 apiece, + $10 shipping, and think I sold them for $329 or $349 each. I guess that's what happens when the majority of them are the same exact grade. They really aren't that rare. But, since I made over $1,000 on a $25 Gold Eagle I sold, I didn't feel too bad about it. You win some, you lose some.

I have a 1929 Mercury dime too. It must be the one I pried out of the floor duct in my upstairs bathroom several years ago. I used a letter opener made from a knife, or an actual knife to dig it loose. It's scratched up around the letter "I" in LIBERTY, but still in much better shape than the one I found in the driveway. I'll take a couple of pics of it and post them later. I'm tired and finally going back to bed around 4 p.m.

P.S. Designer Adolph Alexander Weinman's WA mark is on the front of the original dimes and the gold commemorative, but just looks like a "W" on this old dime of mine.

[Pathfinder]

The first dime is what we call junk silver, valuable for its silver content only. I may be wrong, but numismatically I don't think it has any real value due to its wear. Maybe its age too, not sure. Great find, though.

[Big Frank]

Yeah, I think it's junk too. Here's the 96 year old dime that I dug out of the heating vent. My best guess is that it's worth $7.50-$15, but I'm not a very good judge of condition. Besides this, I have a couple of one ounce silver rounds. They're worth about $48.50. I'll post pics as soon as I edit them.