Posted on 04/09/2014 7:34:27 PM PDT by DogByte6RER
Edited on 04/09/2014 7:36:11 PM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
SAN DIEGO
(Excerpt) Read more at fox5sandiego.com ...
I don’t think we can be certain that it was pilfered. I’m betting there was a time between when they were produced and when they were destroyed. It might have been picked up off the floor. It might have been someone saying to a boss: “hey, can I have one of these?”
The article doesn’t say how many were minted, but pennies in the 70’s were still just pennies. You’d find them lying on the sidewalk, in overstuffed furniture, in car ashtrays. They weren’t highly valued.
They could have been loosely handled between the time when they were going to be used all the way to the time they were decided against.
That would still make him NOT the legitimate owner, but we don’t have to conclude they were pilfered.
“Just watch this case; the U.S. Government will spend lots of taxpayer dollars to get back a single penny made out of aluminum. Our National Debt is over $17 Trillion ... and counting.”
Oh, so on the mark.
So it is govt owned if it's issued as legal currency and it is govt owned if it WASN'T issued as legal tender.
Bureaucrat thinking at it's stupidest.
A little word of advice to those who come across such rare finds: use discretion, and KEEP YOU MOUTH SHUT!
If the government finds out that you have something of value, that they can tax or confiscate, they will do exactly that, and you WILL lose.
Goldbug ping.
If the government never intended for the coin to leave the mint, then the government has a claim on it forever.
It is just like if you find a sunken Spanish Warship from 1650 loaded with gold, the Spanish Government will lay claim to 100% of the treasure. That is why, if you are diving and you find a Spanish warship, you never tell anybody about it.
Likewise, if you happen to find a Denver mint 1974 aluminum penny, you’d better not try to sell it in the United States.
I can imagine some unusual scenarios in which the man might legitimately have the penny, but they require us to imagine a time when that Mint actually thought those coins were going into circulation.
Theoretically, we can maintain that the government never intends mis-stamped or badly stamped coins to leave the mint. Therefore, valuable deviant coins belong to the Mint as coins that were supposed to be thrown away.
In any case, I agree with you. Shut up. Find a buyer and bank your winnings. That’s what I’ve done with all the bitcoins I’ve found buried in my back yard.
But they do. I found a double die penny once and before I could ever get it appraised it was stolen. I was a stupid 12 year old kid and I let a "friend" borrow it and his house was conveniently robbed. The penny had been in circulation for a long time when I found it. It was badly misshapen and I could not understand how it ever got out of the mint. It was probably at the end of a roll and somehow just slipped through. Unfortunately I never got it documented so I could not claim it if it showed up somewhere today.
That’s one of those things you’d like to know the truth of before you kicked the bucket. Find thee ‘friend’ and ask. After all these years he might be honest.
I was dumb then. Today I would have cataloged it and had it insured. I had a lot of really interesting coins that I had bought and found. The double die was a find. At the time a 55 double die in good condition was going for about $5000. This one was actually unique. I think it was a 58 but it was only in fair condition (which is pretty shocking for a coin that was obviously something out of the ordinary). Since it was in relatively poor condition, I doubt if it was worth more than a couple thousand. But if I still had it when I was 16, I could have bought a nice restored 55 Chevy and been instantly in the "in crowd". Instead I drove a 61 Rambler Station Wagon to school and was numbered among the untouchables.
A 61 Rambler Station Wagon....I drove a 64 Ford Falcon. Your Rambler gets the untouchable prize, but a falcon was never quite right.
I got rid of the Rambler when the front wheel fell off.
I bought a 57 Plymouth Fury (which moved me into the almost cool crowd) and then I ended up in my senior year with a 59 MGA (which immediately moved me into the really cool category).
The MGA was about as reliable as a two dollar trumpet, but it was cool, and that was more important than whether or not it actually ran.
I was driving home from the hospital about 2 weeks ago, and there in a used lot off on the left was a prime condition green MGB. Beautiful car. If I had stopped the wife would have killed me....I would not have walked away. LOL.
He'll be lucky if he's not indicted for receiving stolen property. And, no way he's ever going to be able to keep it, much less profit from it.
Beautiful car, but most likely if you had bought it, it would have spent a lot of time up on blocks. I don't think I was ever able to drive my MGA more than a hundred miles before something broke on it. Water pump, generator, shocks, plugs, hoses, coil, valves... Every week something. And it takes a genius to tune the carburetors. I tried once and regretted it. But I learned a lot about car repair.
Eventually I gave up and bought a 63 Bug. It had the beefed up 1300 CC engine!!! I was out of high school by then and it was more important to actually arrive at a destination than to look cool getting there.
My oldest son has mechanical blood. Perhaps I could get him to ignore family and job to keep my MGB running. I already keep him busy with my tractor.
Parts, though, would be impossible to find.
I borrowed a friend’s VW Bug in the dreaded winter of 77/78 to drive back and forth to the Univ of Cincinnati. If I remember it snowed, iced, snowed, iced, stayed below zero for about a month. The roads simply couldn’t get cleaned.
Heater didn’t work, windshield wipers were a joke, but it WENT along those icy roads like a trooper.
Was there another penny made form a whiteish or gray metal? I could swear I had one once.
An unfortunate boating accident...
They weren’t the ones stolen from the mint, anyone with a modicum of numismatic and historical knowledge could noodle that out. The media just ran with that for the progressive envy/titillation value...
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