1913 Liberty Nickel

I get a kick out of that one, since he carried it around loose in his pocket. Imagine that!

 

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I know, right?? The fellow that represented the museum told me and my boy that story. How he would carry it around and slide it across tables for people to look at….. He saw me cringe and it made him laugh.

 

One of the "Zoid Specimens" . . . . .

Z

 

As a retired CPA and State Auditor, there had to be so collusion with several employees as had been mentioned. There internal controls had failed, if there was any in 1913. There have been great strides in Internal Control. I am sure that they have well paid security officers and CPA Internal Auditors. However, no matter how tight internal control is, there are always a few people that will dream about how to get money to pay bills and help their families. 1913 was a difficult time for many families. It wasn't too long before the "Great Depression" and jobs and money was lost. The Mint employees were lucky to have a job, but they were looking out for their friends and extended families. I'm sure that there are other coins that got out of the Mint illegally, but they were very desperate, and they did whatever they had to support their families.

 

It's a design not intended for release ?

 

That applies to every pattern, experimental, and "special strike/special favor" coin ever produced. For the other three (1933, 1964, 1974), the US specifically stated, in one way or another, that they remain the property of the US. They never did that for the 1913.

 

It's cool that the owners of these allow them to be displayed from time to time. I think I have seen three of them over the years.

 

The mint had plenty of internal controls. Heck, PM coinage was delayed in 1793 due to employees unable to post the required bonds set forth in the 1792 mint act, so internal controls around coinage were very much in evidence from the very beginning. Remember, every state at this point had long histories with paper currencies, and all of the theft, forgeries, etc that can happen with it, so I am sure every Congressman was well aware of the need for security around coining.

Lots of stuff would come for sale, most of them fairly innocuous in terms of internal control design, since they could be accomplished with a single participant, (offset errors, switching out common coin for trial pieces measured by weight, etc). However, you are right this one was more of a concern since it required getting a die out of the vault, mounting it, then striking examples "off books" to make it happen. That shows conspiracy and intent to defraud, which is why the 1913 nickels I hate much more than patterns, offmetal strikes, etc that sole mint workers might have made over the years. I can more easily forgive a press worker selling off curiousities to collectors to improve his life more than a conspiracy to violate internal controls. Maybe it is my CPA coming out of me, or my CFO in me in trying to constrain employee misconduct.

 

I remembered that story quite clearly from a publication about 20-25 years ago concerning the "missing" fifth 1913, (before it was found), and why there were stories about there maybe being 6. Either the author had this wrong, or maybe Col Green had a different holder for the 5 plus nickels at different times, IDK. I believe the author referenced a display of them at a show one time of the 6 holder display. Just memory from previous articles I have read. Maybe others remember the article, it describe the dealer who used to own it and how he passed away in a major car crash with his inventory being strewn across a highway, and for years metal detectorists went there hoping to find the fifth 1913 nickel.

 

This story burned so clearly in my kid brain that for many years I thought that there were more 1913's strewn about some highway someplace. I dreamed of it as a kid.

 

I knew about the 1913 nickels from a very early age, but I'd somehow missed the car-crash story until the coin resurfaced in this century.

 

@medoraman These stories get confused and conflated over time. Sort of like the ice cream story with the 1894-S dime I suppose. https://media.stacksbowers.com/VirtualCatalogs/CatalogLibrary/SBG_1913_Nickel_Supplement_LR.pdf is such a detailed (but long) reference that I'd recommend it again. I know there are entire books written about these coins. From that reference, the 8 coin case originated with Nagy, went to Col. Green, and ended up with Newman. From there it's not clear where that case went, although Newman still had it in 2005. The car crash coin was the Walton example, but I don't see any reference to a case for that example. From the link:

The speculation on when the case had to have been made is an interesting tidbit. Also interesting is that Walton had a fake one that he used for casual passing around, and his real one was then presumed to be fake for a long time.

 

I saw it in Greenville, SC this weekend, along with the 1804 $1. While the coins were cool, the display was sort of underwhelming.

 

The April 25, 2013 sale of the Walton (car crash) example has a long but fascinating write up. Sold for just under $3.2 million.
https://coins.ha.com/itm/liberty-ni.../1184-4153.s?ic4=GalleryView-Thumbnail-071515

Particularly interesting to me are the comments by @Fred Weinberg under section 5 "Authenticating." The "ballistic lines" on the edges of the three raw examples matched, indicating they were all "indeed struck at the same time in the same collar." Looking at all 5 of them together must have been an amazing experience.

 

I agree the display itself was underwhelming.... But the way it was done, I could get my camera (phone) within inches of the coin and I was pretty tickled about that.

 

So our very own Fred Weinberg was fortunate enough to confirm the authenticity of these? That's very cool.

 

The coin was a story for an early-1970's episode of "Hawaii 5-0"....The Million Dollar Nickel.

 

Yes, the Olsen example. Another long but interesting write up on that one is here https://coins.ha.com/itm/liberty-ni.../1201-5161.s?ic4=GalleryView-Thumbnail-071515. I disagree with some of the speculation there, such as "Within a week after the first of January, the dies would most likely have been destroyed." We know that the question about whether to destroy the dies was asked on February 24, 1913, clearly implying that the dies still existed at that point.

I get a kick out of the NGC cert#.

 

Another interesting tidbit I ran into is that the "copper" 1913 Indian Head (Type II), which was in the 8-coin case, has apparently been determined to be a copper plated regular circulation coin. https://uspatterns.stores.yahoo.net/j1790.html. I can find no online article about that, but it seems like it must have been after the August 18, 2018 Stack's auction brochure cited above. Or is uspatterns misinterpreting something?

 

I love topics like this that cause me to dig in and learn something new. So, here is the famous coin case.


A September 2011 Numismatist article by Jeff Reichenberger is about the three Buffalo nickels that were also in the case, and provides some details. The image is from when it was still with Eric Newman, with two of the three Buffaloes remaining. Particularly interesting is that "the holes are larger than the nickels by approximately 2mm." You can see that nickels are quite loose in the holes.

This makes the holes roughly 23mm - perhaps sized for half cents 1794-1857, or 2 cents 1864-1873. There were 8 circulation Braided Hair half cents 1849-1857 (23mm). Draped Bust half cents 1800-1808 (23.5mm) also only had 8 dates (no 1801). There were 9 two cent years (23mm), but perhaps 1872 was considered unobtainable.

So, why on earth would you have a custom case made, with the holes too big, and three holes too many? To me the easiest explanation is that the case wasn't created explicitly for the 1913 Liberty Head nickels at all. More likely it was originally intended for a set of Braided Hair half cents, and Brown, Nagy or Wagner repurposed it. All the speculation surrounding the 8-coin case was just people hyping an excuse to believe that there were more 1913s out there to be found.

The case sold through Heritage in 2017 for $10800. https://coins.ha.com/itm/miscellane...1260-15073.s?ic4=GalleryView-Thumbnail-071515