COSTA MESA, CA.- Stack’s Bowers Galleries, the oldest and most accomplished numismatic auction house, auctioned off a dime so rare today that it made its future co-chairman a national celebrity when he was only 19. The final sale price was $1.25 million.
Rarities like the 1894-S dime, an American classic, have layers of desirability. Some collectors are most attracted to a tiny population, some to an elite reputation, some to an oft-recited history.
Only 24 examples were struck with a net mintage of just 21 coins after three were assayed and only nine specimens are positively confirmed to still exist. Market appearances are usually few and far between, as 1894-S dimes have traditionally spent years, if not decades, in tightly held collections.
After producing 2,491,401 dimes during calendar year 1893, the staff at the San Francisco Mint had every reason to believe that they would produce a generous number of dimes the following year. However, 1894 was the second year in the serious economic depression known as the Panic of 1893, that would last until 1897 and affect every sector of the United States economy. By 1894 the economy had already shrunk to the point where there was little need for new circulating coinage and nearly half of the year passed with the dime presses in the San Francisco Mint remaining idle.
The 1894-S dime featured in lot 2056 of Stack’s Bowers Galleries’ Rarities Night session in the Summer 2026 Global Showcase Auction on Sept. 1st, has a special dimension of importance that no other coin, of this issue or any other, could ever claim.
This was the coin that made Q. David Bowers a national celebrity.
America’s most beloved numismatic storyteller has written numerous highly respected books on the subject, but Dave can also boil even the best story down to its simplest elements. In 2016, in his Coin World column “The Joys of Collecting,” he summarized the whole episode in two lines: “In 1957 I paid the seemingly ridiculous price of $4,750 for a Gem 1894-S Barber dime at Stack’s sale of the Empire Collection. This caused a sensation, and my story was carried in hundreds of newspapers nationwide. I received over 6,000 letters from readers.”
Dave Bowers had just turned 19 in November 1957, when Stack’s offered the collection of Dr. Charles A. Cass at auction as “The Empire Collection.” It was a sizable sale of significant coins, numbering almost 2,000 lots over four nights. The second session was Wednesday night, November 13, at 7:30 PM. 500 lots were slated to be sold that evening, 440 of which had to find new homes before the star of the evening could be offered. The highest price among them was an exceptionally rare 1802 half dime, whose cataloger noted “in our estimation, this coin is worth upwards of $2,000.00.” It brought $2,300.
The Cass 1894-S dime, cataloged as lot 881, was clearly to be the star of the evening. “We unhesitatingly value this important piece of American numismatics at $5,000.00.” The time was late, the crowd undoubtedly a bit more subdued after hours of auctioneering. The prize lot got chased almost all the way to its estimate — $4,750. The last card standing was that of young Dave Bowers.
The combination of a lowly dime, a teenager, and a price that seemed extravagant to an average American made Dave’s purchase capture the nation’s imagination. Dave Bowers went viral before going viral was a thing.
“The NBC Studio in Rockefeller Center picked up on the excitement, and a representative contacted me at Penn State,” Dave recalled in 2016. This week, Dave picked up the thread and recalled that heady time. “They paid for my three-day hotel stay and then paid my travel expenses. I appeared at 20 minutes to 8 in the morning, and I was supposed to be on for like 10 or 20 minutes. But the guest coming on the show after me was delayed in traffic. [Today Show host] David Garroway asked during the commercial if I could stay longer to fill in for that guest. I stayed on for nearly an hour; they said that was a record.”
Three nights at the Waldorf-Astoria was followed by reviewing an avalanche of mail, which included everything from numismatic inquiries to marriage proposals. Dave had mentioned that 1877 Indian cents were valuable on the show and viewers could send them to him for sale but, as he recalled, “I think I only ever got one or two.”
Dave was in business at the time with Jim Ruddy, the elder partner at 24. Dave’s relationship with Mrs. Emery Mae Norweb — and knowledge of what the already immense Norweb Collection included — allowed the partnership to make an easy sale of their new prize. Bowers sold Mrs. Norweb the dime for $6,000, and it remained in the Norweb Collection until it was auctioned by Stack’s Bowers in October 1987 for $77,000.
Dave’s viral moment as a teenager helped to launch the greatest career American numismatics has ever seen. The firm built by Q. David Bowers continues to flourish. Consigned from the remarkable collection of Charles “Cheech” Litman, the 1894-S dime Dave bravely bought in 1957 is set to make its fourth ever auction appearance. It has never been sold at auction by anyone but Stack’s Bowers Galleries.
