Rare penny fetches $1 million in Schaumburg auction
Every collecting hobby has its Holy Grail — that special, elusive (and expensive) item that would be the centerpiece to any collection.
For baseball card enthusiasts, it’s a pristine T206 Honus Wagner. For comic book fans, it’s a crease-free copy of Action Comics No. 1, the book that introduced Superman.
A Holy Grail for coin collectors was auctioned off Thursday night in Schaumburg.
The item, a 1792-dated U.S. “experimental” penny, fetched $1 million at the auction, held at the Renaissance Schaumburg Convention Center. But really, it had secured that amount earlier.
Internet bidding on the penny started a few weeks ago, and Kevin Lipton, a dealer out of Southern California representing a group of investors, pushed the price to $1 million before the start of the live auction Thursday night. Then nobody in the live auction challenged the bid.
That didn’t take away from the penny’s importance.
“The auction is a major event for a couple of reasons,” said Todd L. Imhof, executive vice president of Dallas-based Heritage Auction Galleries, which handled the auction. “First is the historical value of the piece. It’s a real classic, one that’s rarely ever seen in such good condition. Second is the interest that this has generated. Only about 25 coins have ever sold for more than $1 million.”
The group of investors actually must pay $1.15 million, because the auction house gets a 15 percent commission on top of the bid.
The coin, consigned by an anonymous collector, is actually a prototype penny designed when the U.S. Mint was created in 1792, Imhof said. The coin consists of a copper ring that surrounds a small plug of silver. The silver was added so that the coin would meet weight requirements set by Congress while keeping the coin relatively small in size.
“An all-copper coin at that weight would have been too big and unwieldy to lug around,” Imhof said.
Pictured on the front of the coin is an image of “Miss Liberty,” who is surrounded by the phrase, “Liberty Parent of Science & Industry.” On the back, the phrase “United States of America One Cent” appears, along with the fraction 1/100.
The coin was never put into circulation. For 220 years, it passed down from owner to owner an estimated five times. Its last sale at a public auction happened in 1974, when a collector bought it for $105,000, Imhof said.
Imhof said 14 examples of the coin are known to exist. Of those, only two are in better condition than the one sold on Thursday, he said.
Imhof also said he believes Lipton and the investors plan on holding on to the coin for a long time, as has been the case with previous owners.
The 1792 penny was the showcase item for a bigger auction that involved roughly $20 million in coins, Imhof said. The auction was held in conjunction with a coin-collecting trade show at the convention center. The trade show brought together dealers and collectors from all over the country.
Barry Bruce, a Lafayette, Ind., resident whose grandmother introduced him to coin collecting when he was 8 or 9 years old, said Thursday afternoon he wouldn’t be bidding on the rare 1792 penny.
“Too ‘platinum’ for me,” he said with a smile.
Outside the auction viewing room, Bruce chatted with David Kahn, a coin dealer from Olney, Md. The two met and became friends on the collecting circuit.
Kahn said the hefty price tags associated with many coins these days have had a negative side effect on the industry.
“There’s really nothing there anymore for kids,” he said. “You have to have a decent amount of disposable income now to participate. It’s hard to get kids interested in the hobby.”
Kahn added that the news isn’t all bad.
“I do see people in their 20s and 30s at coin shows, so the hobby does have a future,” he said. “That’s great news for me.”
Ÿ Daily Herald staff writer Eric Peterson contributed to this report.