1968

The 1968 Roosevelt Dime is a workhorse strike from the Philadelphia Mint that closed out the second full year of the copper-nickel clad transition. After the rolling switchover that began with 1965-dated coins and continued through the no-mintmark Special Mint Set issues of 1965 through 1967, 1968 was the first year that resumed normal coinage practice in a fully clad world. Philadelphia struck 480,748,280 dimes for circulation, a substantial figure that reflected steady commercial demand for ten-cent change in the late 1960s and the Mint's success at building up production capacity in the clad era. With no S-mint dimes for circulation that year, this Philadelphia output and the Denver run carried the entire workload.

Authentication of a 1968 dime is rarely complicated. The coin must weigh 2.268 grams on a calibrated scale, with a diameter of 17.91 millimeters and a reeded edge of consistent count. The cupronickel-clad construction over a pure copper core should be visible as a thin reddish band when the edge is examined under magnification. Strike quality varies widely across the run, and the diagnostic that separates an ordinary example from a premium one is the torch on the reverse: a coin showing Full Bands (FB), with both horizontal bands across the torch sharp and complete, commands a significant premium at the high grades. Condition rarity drives the entire market for this date. Bag marks, contact friction on Roosevelt's cheek, and weakness in the torch lines are the most common faults that hold a piece back from MS67 and above.

Roll-quantity survival means that circulated and lower-Mint State examples carry essentially no premium and trade at face value or close to it. The real game is at the top of the grading scale, where FB designation, frost, and clean surfaces interact to push values from a few dollars at MS66 into solid three-figure territory at MS67FB and well beyond at MS68FB. For broader context on how the clad era reshaped the series, see the Roosevelt Dime series history.