Sunday, August 31, 2003
The history-making prices paid for two coins during the Baltimore convention of the American Numismatic Association showed again that it is the oddity and the romance of coins that attract the most interest.
At the sale, a dealer paid $1.4 million for an 1804 dollar, one of only 15 known. Also, the auction house Bowers and Merena paid $1 million for an 1913 nickel, one of only five known.
Each coin stands outside the norm of coinage and mint practice. The mint never struck dollars in 1804, but used an 1804 die to strike presentation pieces for foreign heads of state in 1837 and again in 1854. The coins never circulated and were eagerly bought by major collectors in the 20th century.
They were just as eagerly counterfeited. Vietnamese sold hand-made "1804 dollars" to GIs during the Vietnam War.
The 1913 nickel was never struck for circulation, but mint employee Samuel W. Brown is believed to have secretly struck all five. Only four had been seen by collectors, and Bowers and Merena had announced it would pay $1 million for the long-lost fifth nickel.
The offer brought the coin out of hiding. It had been held by the family of dealer George Walton, who died in a car crash in 1962. The nickel survived the crash, but Walton's heirs believed the coin was not one of the five and had kept it in a box.
Other nickels in the illicit quintet have sold for $1.8 million -- and one as high as $3 million. As in other aspects of life, romance and the faint whiff of scandal draw collectors.
Stuck in controversy
After all the protests by the artist, the press campaigns and the plebescite conducted by the governor, the Missouri quarter has finally appeared.
The changes are obvious. Artist Paul Jackson's original design had emphasized the past and present equally, balancing Lewis and Clark with a prominent St. Louis arch.
Now, the quarter puts the famed explorers at the center, in a dugout canoe paddling past tree-lined riverbanks. The St. Louis arch is downscaled in the distance.
Still, the current design has attracted public grumbles since it suggests the arch spans the river.
The legends are "Corps of Discovery" above the arch and "E Pluribus Unum" under the date.
The Missouri coin is the 24th in the series of state quarters.
Jackson made news through the last year by protesting the changes proposed by the directors of the mint. The mint called his design impractical for the minting process and a jarring juxtaposition of old and new historic elements.
Jackson took his protest to Washington, and even printed colored versions of his design, which he pasted on hundreds of quarters circulated in Missouri.
XDaniel Webster is a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer.