IS it a dime? Or is it a nail?

    In probably one of the oddest items to come to the world of coin collecting, Dallas-based Heritage Auctions has announced the sale of a Roosevelt dime that was accidentally (or some say deliberately) struck onto a zinc nail.

    Yes, that piece of ironmongery used to repair your roof.

    The dime/nail is estimated to be worth roughly US$10,000.

    In the billions of coins it has made over its history, the U.S. Mint has made more than a few errors.

    There were Lincoln pennies that were struck onto the material for a dime, Washington quarters struck more than once, wrong dates on coins, etc. Most errors are caught by the Mint, but occasionally a few make it out into circulation. Those error coins have been highly sought by collectors.

    This error coin coming to auction in January in Tampa, Florida, is one of the more bizarre errors to come to public attention. In a weird linguistic twist, another name for the 5-centimeter nail is a sixpenny nail.

    “It is certainly the most unusual item I have had to catalogue in my career,” said Mark Borckardt, the senior numismatist at Heritage New York-based Auctions. A numismatist is person who studies or collects coins or bank notes.

    It is not the first coin printed onto a nail, however, said Fred Weinberg, a coin dealer considered one of the top experts in error coins. A few pennies in the late 1970s were struck onto nails. This dime/nail is undated, so there is no way to tell when the item was created. Weinberg said it is possible the dime/nail was made on purpose by a rogue Mint employee.

    Despite it not being one of a kind, Weinberg says, there are probably only about a half dozen coin/nail examples known and only two dimes. He expects the dime/nail to sell for roughly US$10,000, but public interest could raise that amount.

    (SD-Agencies)