My aunt recently came into the store I manage....She has hit me some rather gut wrenching news about my father...Whom I have not seen for a couple of years. I know most of you recall the newest discovery of one of the 1913 V nickel....That has sold for about 1.5 million...This older lady who had lived in salisaw at the time, which I think is in Oklahoma, not for sure though...She had previously tried to sale this coin to my father, who didn't know about this coin, let alone any other coin, he was simply given the opportunity to purchase the coin for a couple of hundred, or whatever he thought it was worth, he said it was a very nice coin, but, he didn't see the point in paying that much for a nickel....To think..My father was able to see this coin, and not purchase it, gives me a gut wrenching feeling, as it did him, as he watched on t.v. as it was sold off for 1.5 million. Do not get me wrong, this story could be false....It may not be the same one, it may have been a fake...But, family has told me so, and as far as I know, that's how it happend.....Maybe someone will give me some info that shows this claim as false, so I don't have to hurt him too bad....
Early price of V nickel: $200.00 Watching the nickel you didn't buy sell in auction for 1.5 million: Priceless.
There are a lot of fake 1913s around - including some old ones. The family that had the recent disovery was told previously that it was fake, so it is doubtful they would have tried to sell it to anyone without at least telling them it was a forgery. It was from a coin dealer's family, so while they may not have been experts, they knew something about the field and would not have been trying to unload stuff from the family vault without going to a proper dealer or authority. Your father was either offered a fake innocently, or a fake hoping to rip him off, most likely.
That's kind of what I was thinking too, was that it was a fake.....The story of who sold the coin, and where they got it, and the story of who offered the coin to my dad, didnt measure up all the way, from what I have heard so far, I spoke with my dealer today on it, and he figures that it was probably a fake as well...
I have to agree - especially since the Walton family did not know for the past couple of decades that the coin was sitting in a shoebox inside one of their closets. They weren't out trying to sell it. You tell your dad he did the right thing - just keep trusting his instincts
