coin or curiosity?

[Figleaf]

Since the piece did not circulate, wasn't intended to circulate and was struck illegally, I wonder if it's a coin. Maybe it all depends on your definition of a coin. What do you think?

Source: 1010WINS

Peter

N.J. Coin Shop Gets $5 Million for Rare 1913 Nickel

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (AP)  -- A Southern California coin collector paid $5 million for a rare "Liberty Head'' nickel, the most ever paid for a nickel and the second-highest price ever paid for any coin, according to the coin dealer who arranged the sale.

The unidentified collector bought the 1913 nickel Wednesday from a New Jersey-based coin shop and a businessman in Washington state, who jointly purchased the coin in May 2005 for a then-record price of $4.15 million, said Ronald J. Gillio, who negotiated the sale.

"We hope he enjoys it as much as we did,'' said Laura Sperber, an owner of Legend Numismatics in Lincroft, N.J.

The Liberty Head nickel gets its name from the symbolic image of a "Miss Liberty'' mistakenly stamped on it by the Philadelphia mint in 1913, the year that icon was replaced with images of an Indian and a bison.

Only five 1913 Liberty Head nickels are known today, with two in public museum collections. One is in the Smithsonian Museum's permanent coin collection in Washington, D.C., the other at the American Numismatic Association Money Museum in Colorado Springs, Colo.

The $5 million paid Wednesday was second only to the $7.59 million paid in July 2002 for a $20 Double Eagle gold from 1933.

[muntenman]

James Earle Frasier is to blame:

In the year of issue 1913 there were 2 varieties:

1 showing buffalo Black Diamond from New York Zoological Gardens on a mound. Five cents appears at surface.
2 showing the same buffalo with the base redesigned to a thinner straight line. Five cents is recessed. So no mound what so ever, buffalo stands on a line.

The second varieties came in circulation until 1938, the first variety was withdrawn and remelted....

So this makes it certainly a coin.

Did you know that James looked for the perfect indian and that he decided to build a face himself from 3 different Indian-models?

[King-of-counters]

All I can say is total maddness           
Pieter...

[translateltd]

I believe that Peter's original quote refers to the Liberty Head nickel, of which only about six were struck, not the more common Buffalo/Indian Head nickels.

James Earle Frasier is to blame:

In the year of issue 1913 there were 2 varieties:

1 showing buffalo Black Diamond from New York Zoological Gardens on a mound. Five cents appears at surface.
2 showing the same buffalo with the base redesigned to a thinner straight line. Five cents is recessed. So no mound what so ever, buffalo stands on a line.

The second varieties came in circulation until 1938, the first variety was withdrawn and remelted....

So this makes it certainly a coin.

Did you know that James looked for the perfect indian and that he decided to build a face himself from 3 different Indian-models?

[muntenman]

Sorry, my mistake! I am glad that my messages are reasd on this forum. In my little old Yeoman-edition of US coins 1975 there were indeed 5 pieces known to the editor, and at a sale in 1972 it fetched 100.000 us dollars.

According page 90:

I quote: Five 1913 Liberty head nickels were originally owned bij Colonel Green ( son of the famous Hetty Green). They have been dispersed and are now held in the collections of several individuals. These were not a regular issue and were never placed in circulation. End of quote.

[gpimper]

That is true.  They were not sanctioned prints.  Not sure about the money amount, though...some folks have more money that cents ;-) I might have to go back through some of my Nickels!