Posted on 01/29/2013 6:38:25 AM PST by Red Badger
This image provided by Heritage Auctions shows an authentic 1913 Liberty Head nickel that was hidden in a Virginia closet for 41 years after its owners were mistakenly told it was a fake. The nickel is one of only five known and expected to sell for $2.5 million or more in an auction conducted by Heritage Auctions in the Chicago suburb of Schaumburg, Ill., on April 25, 2013. (AP Photo/courtesy of Heritage Auctions.)
What a great guy, that attorney. Really looking out for the best interests of his clients. The coin was worth $3,750 fifty years earlier, and he offered $5,000.
| I once got Liberty Head | nickles in my change. |
| It was AWESOME | to see a coin of such antiquity. |
| It felt GREAT | to holda piece of history in your hand. |
Should keep it. It’s just like gold, without the paper vs bullion or titanium issues.
I took one of those for payment once, but it was made of wood.
I have been warning people against that ever since.
You raise good points but there are four siblings that own it. Simpler to sell and split the money up. One might quibble over whether now the best time.
I have about a dozen of these nickels at home.
“The sad part is my mother had it for 30 years and she didn’t know it,” Cheryl Myers said. “Knowing our mother, she probably would have invested it for us. She always put her children first.”
She did invest it for you, dummy. How much would she have made on that $4-5000 she would have gotten back then? Millions? Nope.
:)
Yep, sometimes I don’t even have to glance at the by-line.
When I was in high school, in 1962, I received an unusual coin in my change as I paid for a school lunch.
It was a Jefferson head nickel that had somehow never gotten a date. I’ve taken it to two or three coin shows and all I ever got from the “experts” was “It’s not worth anything, but I’ll give you 10 bucks for it.”
I still have it 51 years later.
Any thoughts?
"Penny for your thoughts..."
Are you sure the date hasn’t been rubbed off? What is the overall condition of the coin?
When she died in 1992, her son view it as worthless, so they lost the estate tax exemption/credit at that time...
Now the heirs will have to state their cost basis as ZERO, and pay capital gains ( at Obama's new higher rate) on 100% of what they get..
If this is the case, then all five of them are fakes.
And by the way, coins aren't "cast", they are stamped.
Condition of Coin is mint. Date area has a small folded over piece of excess metal from the coining operation that extends into the date area. The coin blank probably had a torn piece of attached excess metal from the blanking that was obviously defective and prevented the dating operating from happening.
Take it to a Numismatic Society representative for honest appraisal..........
Actual die errors are generally found and documented as in the “Red Book” - these often dramatically increase the value of the coin as a collectible depending on how many instances are thought to exist.
What you have sounds more like something that slipped through QC. Interesting, and probably worth at least ten bucks as an oddity.
Don’t shop a coin around a coin show unless you know as much about that coin as they do, because some of those guys are thieves and will steal the ignorant blind. I once helped an elderly couple by selling a coin they had inherited long before. The local coin shop offered them practically nothing and even they knew better. I took it to a very large coin show where hundreds of dealers were set up. It was a very rare 1883 Hawaiian silver dollar in XF condition; did you ever see one? I showed it to dealers that had smaller denominations of the Hawaiian series in their display cases, so they knew exactly what I had. They all offered only a fraction of its value, citing a lower grade than it truly was. I finally sold it for fair value, but not at that show.
Collecting mint errors is a specialty of some collectors, so I think your coin should be worth more than $10, but I don’t know how much.
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