Hello Everyone. Thought I'd share this recent pickup of mine. This coin came in a package deal with some Pre-Colonial coins I purchased. It is not worth much (was probably a give away at a coin show), but John was rather famous in the industry when it came to error coins. Some might say he really is the "Grandfather" of the Error Coin Collecting community! Here is an excerpt from his obituary (he died in 2013). "In the early 1970s John Devine and John Burrison formed a company called John-John Specialties. As I recall, Burrison worked as a co-pilot/navigator for a major airline. This gave them the opportunity to visit many area coin shows and dealers where the flights were scheduled, allowing them to add to their error stock. Devine’s residents was the home base and he put the error coin catalogs together and sold mainly through mail order. There were many layoffs in the engineering field during this time and Devine felt he needed to find more stable employment. Burrison lost interest in the hobby so Devine ended the relationship and started his own error coin mail-order business out of the family’s dining room. Spellman suggested the name of “Lonesome John” based on the fact that he was to become the first (and lone) full-time error coin dealer at that time. The error coin business was later moved from the home to a commercial site in Newbury Park. As the business grew, the printing business evolved due to the difficulty of finding an efficient and reliable printer for the error coin catalogs. John decided he could do it himself better and cheaper. The other tenants in the building came to him for envelopes, letterheads, business cards and fliers. So both the coin business and printing businesses grew and thrived."
Thanks Mark! Sometimes, a coin's value is not based on it's precious metal... it's rarity or even condition... sometimes it's just the cool story that comes along with it! I thought it was pretty cool myself, and I'll proudly add it to my collection!
