Roosevelt Dime Oddities

Iv never noticed this either, interesting. I wonder if it's a design change or if it's due to the dot being polished off. I'll keep up with this thread, if it's a design change then perhaps the the 67 you found us a potential mule.

Instead of the close ups like this I recommend posting the whole coin you are inquiring about front and back, followed by an example of another one of the same year that has the dot.

Ok... I have seen an example of this on another site but I am prohibited from showing the link or the name. However, the 1965 dime still showed the dot. Still no answer as to why this was done.

Ok.. I did some research and this is what I found. They do polish dies if the surface shows reasonable wear. Polishing a die only touches the surface of the die. All the elements like letters, portrait, date and mint marks are recessed and would not likely receive much polish if any. You can't completely remove an element if it is recessed. If it were raised like what you see on the coin, then that might be possible. Most missing elements like letters and dates are usually caused by a weak strike or grease filling up the element or both. A lot of those occurred at the outer rim of the coin and can be caused by a blank not seated properly. They are very common. This element or dot on the reverse was in the center of the coin and did not disturb the letters near it. This is either grease or just missing from the master die. I have seen this exact oddity occur on dimes in the years 1965, 1966 and 1967. I don't believe they would use the same die for three years running and grease would have been cleaned long before that time. This leaves me with the belief that this was missing from one of the master dies that was used to make the working die. Regardless of how it was done, this appears to be common and would not change the value. And oddly enough, this was the exact years that the mint marks were ordered not to be used, due to people hoarding coins. Probably not related but interesting. Thanks to everyone who responded to my inquiry.

If the master hub was thin, then all the years that it was used would affect all the coins from that thinned master hub.
If the master die was affected, then 50% of those years that it was used could affected on the coins from that thinned master die.
But the don't polish these dies. These are the masters that create the dies/hubs down the line.

On the reverse dies without the date, the same master hub/die could be used on different years.
The worn working hubs are used to be used for a longer time. These transfer/create worn examples. When you look on the older quarter reverses, you see the reverse get very mushy thought the years. When they re-create new working hubs, you can see the differences on working hub states. So it not the polishing of the Master that is the issues. It is the continuing to keep using some of the masters that create the process issues.
But on the dimes, the issue is the working die that was damaged and polished. On these die clashes happen, but a stronger alteration of the dies are Feeder Finger Damage. The FFD is horizontal on the reverse/obverse dies:

Depending on how deep the damage was on the die, they polishing can alter the devices a lot in a bad way.

Note the affected areas on the centers of this coins devices? Note how flat the fields are on the reverse. This obverse polishing is also affecting the devices, making them shorter and narrow in size, because of the die abrasion by the polishing. So it is not the masters that are polished, it is the working dies that are polished. The masters Hub/die and working hub can breakdown, but they are not polished. Just the working dies. (Because they are the ones affected by clashes and FFD damage to the dies) Even dropping dies on each other are also affected and these are also polished off on the working dies.






Also die gouges can be removed from the dies affecting the thinning of devices.
So most of the information was correct, except with the polishing of the Master hub/die and working dies. Hope this helps a bit more.

The second image was not the correct one, but here is what the Feeder Finger Damage on a Dime would look like:

(sorry I didn't notice that it was the wrong image, tried to edit it, but it was too late. So I included it here)

Thus when they polish the die, it removes part of the surface of the fields and the devices, making them smaller:

Thanks for the info. I have noticed those dots in various sizes. I did give them a closer look and I do think it was likely a polishing issue. One of them may have suffered a strike that just sheared the dot off. However, on a couple of others, I was not able to determine what caused it.