Featured 1913 Liberty Nickel Lore

I was looking through the Heritage archives and stumbled on this piece of history that sold for nearly 3.8 million dollars in January of 2010.



I did a little research and dug up this interesting history and thought I would share it with people that might not know the color surrounding this legendary coin.

The 1913 Liberty Head Nickel is one of the most prized and valuable coins ever produced. Only 5 Proof specimens are known to exist. Facts are sketchy on the minting of the 1913 Liberty Head Nickel. It is believed that 5 specimens were struck at the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia sometime between July of 1912 and February of 1913.

One theory says the coins were struck as advanced test pieces in July 1912. Another theory says an employee was there after-hours and struck 5 specimens before the dies were destroyed in preparation for the change to the Buffalo Nickel in February 1913. This second theory seems a bit more likely to me.

In either case, the coins left the mint in some sort of unauthorized manner and were kept secret until 1920, until after the statute of limitations for theft ran out. U.S. Treasury officials later ruled that the coins were “legally struck” and were never confiscated like the 1933 St. Gaudens Double Eagles were.

Current numismatic information shows the total mintage of the Liberty Head Nickel is 5. However some early evidence might point to a different total mintage.

An early owner of the entire set of 1913 Liberty Head Nickels, a man named Colonel E.H.R. Green, had a special velvet & leather case made for them. However few people ever saw the Nickels as he kept them locked away in his safe. However the lore spread about the existence of these rare Nickels.



It's noteworthy that this early owner of this rare set of nickels had a very famous mother. He was the son of Hetty Green who was nicknamed "The Witch of Wall Street". Hetty Green was a miserly American businesswoman and was the first woman to make a substantial impact on the American Financial Industry in New York. So Colonel E.H.R. Green came from a well connected family with money. It's unclear to me if Colonel Green was the mint employee that struck the nickels, if he bought the nickels from the mint employee a short time later, or if he had actually contracted with the mint employee in secret to strike the nickels for him. However, considering the look and background of the man, I think it's likely one of the latter two scenarios.

About 10 years later, during the Great Depression, an enterprising coin dealer, B. Max Mehl of Fort Worth, Texas, ran thousands of nationwide ads -- advertising $50 to anyone that could find and send to him a 1913 Liberty Head Nickel (even though they were never released into circulation and finding one was for all intents and purposes impossible). This sparked a national treasure hunt for the nickel that was worth $50, a huge sum of money during the Depression. Cable cars and tramways in big cities would often run behind schedule during this era because the conductor was too busy checking all the nickels they collected in fares.

In 1936, Colonel E.H.R. Green passed away. When the set of 1913 Liberty Head nickels was finally shown to the public after the owners death, people were shocked to see the special leather and velvet case was made with 6 nickel sized holes -- and one of the holes had been filled by a bronze cast 1913 Buffalo Nickel. This led to a lot of conjecture that there were actually six 1913 Liberty Nickels minted and one had been held back in secret by the family or was lost -- and the Buffalo Nickel placed into the case as a filler coin for the empty hole.

By the mid 1940’s, the 1913 LHN was an integral part of the national psyche. So when individual specimens were sold off from the original 5 they sold for what was at the time an exorbitant amount of money, as much as $3,800 each. Each time one was subsequently sold, the price got higher and the legend grew deeper. Even King Farouk of Egypt had two different LHN specimens in his world-class coin collection at different times.

Fast forward to 1962, and another twist gets added to the story. In March of 1962, an owner of one of the 1913 Liberty Nickels, George Walton, had a mishap with his coin. Walton was driving to a coin show where he had told the promoters he was bringing a 1913 Liberty Nickel so they could display it at the show. Unfortunately, Walton crashed his car and lost his life in terrible wreck while en route. Although the police and rescue found thousands of dollars in coins at the wreck scene, the 1913 Liberty Head was missing. Some people speculated someone had stolen it, others felt it had been lost at the scene. Later in 1962, Walton’s heirs found a 1913 Liberty in George’s home and took it to a certification firm for authentication; however experts at the firm condemned the coin as fake.

So for the next 40 years, from 1962 through 2002, only four 1913 Liberty Head Nickels were accounted for.

Finally in 2003, the ANA organized a reunion for the four remaining known specimens of the 1913 Liberty Nickel at their annual World’s Fair of Money. To add interest they offered a $10,000 reward for anyone that could lead them to the lost fifth specimen.

The Walton heirs having seen photos of other 1913’s and reading about the search for the lost coin thought their coin, previously declared a fake, was worth another look so they brought their coin to the ANA show for examination. Experts at the ANA show were shocked to see this “lost” super-rarity walk through their showroom doors. Six experts at the Fair examined the coin and each one declared it genuine. So the lost fifth 1913 Liberty had been “found” after 40 years!

Still questions remain today on a possible 6th specimen. Why would George Walton tell show promoters in 1962 that he was bringing his coin, only to leave it at home? Did he have 2 coins? And was one flung from his car in the crash and lost at the scene? And why did the original owner of the set of Liberty Head Nickels have a special leather and velvet case made for his coins with 6 holes?

Over the years, the coins ended up getting named for owners that held them for long periods of time.

The five known specimens of the 1913 Liberty Head Nickel are as follows:

• The Eliasberg Specimen, PCGS and NGC PR-66, once owned by Louis Eliasberg was sold in January 2007 by Stack's. Current owner anonymous.

• The Olsen Specimen, PCGS and NGC PR-64, named for early owner Fred Olsen, sold in Aug. 2003 for $3 million to an anonymous buyer. Later sold for $3.8 million in January 2010 by Heritage (auction shown above). This coin was once featured on an episode of Hawaii-Five-O.

• The Norweb Specimen, named for previous owner Henry Norweb, is officially ungraded and in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Institution.

• The Walton Specimen, officially ungraded but authenticated in 2003 by several experts, held by George Walton's heirs.

• The McDermott Specimen, NGC PR-55, named for former owner (and vest-pocket coin dealer) J.V. McDermott, is currently in the ANA World of Money Collection.

 

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Thanks so much! That was great.

 

wow thats pretty interesting! thanks for the history lesson on the 1913 liberty nickel. i wounder if the 6th one will ever be found if it even exists(sp?)

 

That was an awesome read! I just picked up my first LHN (a 1912), so this was very very interesting to me!

 

Thanks, coinmaster1. I also found the story really interesting and intriguing.

I agree woodsman. I think a 6th coin seems plausible based on the six-coin holder designed by the original owner of the set.

Nice pickup, Kanderus. I always liked the design of the Liberty Head Nickel.

 

This was an interesting story to read. I think the 6th coin is going to be a mystery, just like UFO's. I can see it now. what happened to the 6th coin? What is lost, was it destroyed in the minting process etc. Unless it's ever found we will never know.

Thanks for sharing

 

Thanks for the informative write up. What an amazing history with these nickels.
Didn't the "6th" one popup here at CT last week?

 

Thanks for posting that GDJMSP. That definitely could be true.

However most designers like odd numbers, A grouping of 3 or 5 definitely looks better than a grouping of 4 or 6. So I find it odd that someone would take a nice odd number set of 5 Lib Nickels and go out of their way to toss in an extra hole for 6 coins. And have that coin be of a different sereis.

With 6 it's hard to make it look even and symmetrical

This layout would look odd:
LIB LIB LIB BUFF LIB LIB

This layout would not be so bad, however I have no idea what the layout was in the special case.
-- BUFF
- LIB LIB
LIB LIB LIB

By the way, does anybody know what happened to that cast bronze Buffalo Nickel?
Who owns it, or if there were records of it being sold?
I tried to research it, but could find NOTHING on it at all. I think it would be very cool to see an image of that original bronze-cast Buffalo.

I would also love to see a photo of the original leather and velvet holder of the six coins.
I am not sure there was ever a photo taken of it.
I could find no record of it on the internet.

(gbroke, I bet the Chinese could help us out!)

 

That was so good!

 

I heard that the 6th coin resides in a safe deposit box with the 2nd 1849 Double Eagle and belongs to DB Cooper.

 

Excellent post WingedLib! I truly enjoyed reading the story behind the 1913 Liberty Head Nickels and I found it to be very interesting and informative. Stories like this one really add to the hobby.
We need more of these kinds of educational threads on the forum.

As a related side note, Col E.H.R. Green was quite the character and noted collector in the early years of the 20th century, at one time he owned an entire sheet of the most famous and valuable US Stamp error:
The "Inverted Jenny" air-mail stamp, with the upside down Curtis Jenny bi-plane on it. He broke up the block and sold the stamps in smaller blocks or as individuals.

 

That was a great read WL. I saw the length of the article and I initially thought, uh oh!! This guys a lawyer, I won't be able to understand a thing. I actually did though and enjoyed it very much.

Which of the five did Tradedollarnut own?

 

1913 v nickel

 

RaceBannon, I am not a stamp collector, but I LOVE that stamp. I think I recall reading Col. Green took one of those Inverted Jenny stamps and placed in a locket and gave it to his wife, who wore it until her death.

Robec, let's go find TradeDollarNut!

PhatDaddy, you found the 6th! Check the mintmark on the back for a C (for China)

 

I like 1913 Liberty nickel lore. I got a chance to see all 5 specimens at once at the ANA show in LA. That was great.

 

According to an article I just read, Bruce was the prior majority owner of the Olsen example that sold January, 2010 for $3.7 million.

 

I read a book about these nickels last year. I believe it was titled "Million Dollar Nickels" or something like that. It was very informative and well worth the read through!!

 

OK, no offense but time for corrections to the narrative.

OK this isn't so much a correction as a bit of history and personal opinion. Most likely the coins are NOT proofs. Originally only two of the coins were described as proofs and the other three were identified as business strikes. Since they were all struck at the same time they would most likely all be one or the other, not a mixture of the two. Over the years the Business strike coins have gradually "become" proofs. As I said originally two were proofs, then three were proofs, then four, and now all five are proofs although the McDermott specimen is described as an impaired proof. In my opinion what they really are are prooflike business strikes from a brand new freshly polished die.

The dies were not made until late November or early December and being the same design that they had been making for years there would be no reason to make "test strikes". There would have been no reason to strike pieces until after Dec 13th when the official word came down from the Treasury to do nothing about nickel production for 1913 until the new design was approved. Once they received that word they knew there would be no 1913 V nickels. By that time ten pairs of dies had already been shipped to San Francisco so they had to wire and order their return. They arrive back on Dec 26th. The question of the last possible time they could have been made is more open to question. I have seen two claims, one that the dies were destroyed on Dec 29th 1912, and another that they were destroyed along with all the 1912 dies in April 1913. I don't know which is correct but I suspect the former.

The statute of limitations had NOT run out in 1920. The seven year statute does not begin until the theft is discovered and an investigation begun. But in 1919 former US Mint Employee Samuel Brown began advertising to buy 1913 V Nickels and later in 1920 at the Chicago Coin Club and later at the ANA Convention he exhibited all five pieces.

As far as I know the Treasury has never made any official ruling on the status of the 1913 V nickels.

Colonel Green never worked at the Mint. (About the only real work he ever really did was running his small railroad line down in Texas.) He did not buy them or contract with the mint employee to make them. Col Green did not begin collecting until the late 1920's. He was sold the five coins by a coin dealer, I forget the name but I believe it was Nagy.

Actually the case has eight holes. The case still exists and is still owned by the man who bought the set from the Green estate, Eric P Newman. The case has been pictured in Coin World and was on display at the 2003 ANA that brought together all the coins once again. When Eric bought it it had the five V nickels in it and three pattern buffalo nickels including one in bronze. So much for the sixth specimen.

A 1913 V Nickel was recovered from the accident scene. That coin was sent to Stack's in New York where it was declared to have an altered date. (It is important to know that George Walton was known to have owned an altered date specimen.)

The Walton's were contacted by Donn Pearlman and requested to bring their altered date piece to the convention to have it as part of the display and history of the 1913 V Nickel. After they arrived and the "altered date" piece was looked at it was thought that it might actually be the missing fifth coin. So very hush hush a panel of expects was brought together along with the four known genuine pieces for an examination. A big deal has been made about how it was a late night midnight meeting, but the reason for that was that the other four coins were out on display at a banquet.

Well the Walton coin was determined to be genuine. But the coin had changed hands in the family once or twice over the years, and no one who saw the coin back in 62 in the family was still alive, and the Stack's employee who saw it back then was long gone as well. So no one can prove whether the genuine coin seen at the ANA in 2003 was the same coin declared an altered date in 1962.

He did that sometimes as a joke. He would display the altered date piece as the genuine and get his jollys out of watching people oh and ah over the "great rarity".

James McDemott was another owner who liked to have fun with his coin. He used to carry it as a pocket piece (No holder) and when he would be out at a bar or restaurant and someone asked him about his rare nickel he would pull it out and pass it around! (Remember no holder). Eventually his friends got him to put it in a snaplock 2X2 but that is why today it is an "impaired proof". It grades as a high XF. He also loved loaning the coin to coin shows for display. He wouldn't go to the shows, he would just mail them the coin. In a folded piece of cardboard in a standard envelope.....no insurance.

 

Excellent Corrections! Thank you.

All the info I found was on the internet (and who knows if that's right or not!)
I definitely trust your book more than my web references.

I can't believe he mailed that coin in an envelope without insurance ... holy cow!

And using a 1913 Lib Nickel as a "pocket piece" ... was he nuts???