Rare Nickel: $3.1M auction price for century-old nickel
The 1913 Liberty Head nickel is one of only five known to exist. But it's the coin's back story that adds to its cachet.
This 1913 Liberty Head Nickel - one of only five known to exist - was auctioned April 25, night during the Central States Numismatic Society show at the Schaumburg Convention Center in Schaumburg, Ill. for $3,172,500.
Patrick Kunzer/Daily Herald/AP
SCHAUMBURG, Illinois
A rare century-old U.S. nickel that was once mistakenly declared a fake has sold at auction for more than $3.1 million.
The 1913 Liberty Head nickel is one of only five known to exist. But it's the coin's back story that adds to its cachet: It was surreptitiously and illegally cast, discovered in a car wreck that killed its owner, declared a fake, forgotten in a closet for decades then declared the real deal.
It was offered for sale by four Virginia siblings at a rare coin and currency auction in the Chicago suburb of Schaumburg on Thursday, and sold for well over the expected $2.5 million.
The winning bidders were two men from Lexington, Kentucky and Panama City, Florida, who bought the coin in partnership.