As the federal
government prints billions of dollars to prop up a sagging
economy, some worry that a dollar just isn't worth anything
these days. They've probably never seen an 1804 Silver
Dollar.
A specimen in good condition is worth
$10 million, making it America's most valuable coin.
With only 19 copies known to exist, it's also the envy
of numismatists across the country.
With only 19 copies known to exist,
it's also the envy of numismatists across the country.
"The major collectors who don't have one
just sort of put their heads down," says John Albanese,
president and founder of Certified Acceptance Corp., under
whose auspices he has bought and sold more than 20 seven-figure
coins.
In
Depth: Most Valuable U.S. Coins
The 1804 Silver Dollar is one of four coins worth more than
$5 million in good condition. The star-crossed 1933 Double
Eagle is second on the list at $8.5 million, followed by the
1913 Liberty Nickel at $5.9 million--bizarrely, one of the
only legal coins ever produced without the knowledge of the
U.S. Mint. Rounding out the top five is the $4.4 million 1861
Double Eagle, of which only two examples are known to exist.
Behind the Numbers
Our values of these rare coins are courtesy of Nostomania,
a collectibles evaluator run by software developers and engineers
that generates pricing data by processing actual-sales figures
through a set of proprietary algorithms. These are theoretical
values--they assume that each coin has a grade of MS-63 (on
a 1-70 scale), numismatic lingo for very good condition. Some
of these coins are not known to exist in this precise condition,
but this is the only way to make an apples-to-apples comparison.
With the stock market tanking, many high-net-worth investors
have started paying attention to rare coins because they have
some degree of inherent value. David Albanese, president of
coin dealer Albanese Rare Coins (no relation to John Albanese)
estimates that rare coin values are up by almost 25% over
the past year.
"If you buy $1 million worth of stocks, it could go
down to $20,000," he says. "That just doesn't happen
with coins. They really are artifacts, and there are a finite
number of the rare ones left."
Catch Me If You Can
The stories behind the coins often contribute to their value--but
can also be their undoing.
The aforementioned 1933 Double Eagle, for example, is perhaps
the rarest and most famous coin. As a result of a bizarre
series of events that started unfolding nearly a century ago,
there is only one in existence that's legal to own.
Shortly after the coins were minted, President Franklin D.
Roosevelt issued an executive order outlawing the circulation
and possession of gold currency in an attempt to stabilize
the country's teetering bank system. As legend has it, a U.S.
Mint cashier by the name of George McCann smuggled out a handful
of the coins before they could be destroyed.
The government discovered this in 1944, and the Secret Service
immediately embarked on a quest to hunt down the missing coins.
However, shortly before the search began, Egyptian King Farouk
acquired a Double Eagle and applied for a license to own it.
Government officials unknowingly accepted his application,
and the coin was pronounced legal to own. When Farouk was
deposed in 1952, the coin went missing again.
Four decades later, a British coin dealer named Stephen Fenton
was found in possession of what he claimed was King Farouk's
coin during a sting operation in New York. As part of a settlement,
he agreed to sell it in an open auction, and the record $7.6
million it fetched from an anonymous buyer in 2002 was split
between Fenton and the U.S. government. Leading up to the
auction, the coin was stored in a safe at the World Trade
Center, then transferred to Fort Knox just months before the
Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
In 2003, there was another twist in the saga: A woman from
Philadelphia named Joan Langbord discovered 10 Double Eagles
in a safe deposit box belonging to her late father, Israel
"Izzy" Switt, a jeweler long linked to rumored coin-pilferer
McCann's stash. A year later Langbord handed the Double Eagles
over to the U.S. Mint to have them certified. But the Feds
confiscated the coins in 2005, claiming they were taken in
an unlawful manner, and Langbord is now suing the government
to have them returned. The potential flood of Double Eagles
has kept the coin from ascending to the top of this list.
"If these come to market, the sale prices will certainly
drop significantly," says Nostomania's Tommy Jasmin.
Still, some collectors argue that machine-generated values
aren't always accurate. John Albanese thinks the 1933 Double
Eagle is worth $7.5 million--just shy of its 2002 auction
price, and 12% less than Nostomania's figure.
Albanese has also heard rumors that the "Farouk Double
Eagle," now on display at the Federal Reserve in New
York isn't actually the one that was owned by King Farouk.
He says the Egyptian monarch was famous for excessively wiping
down his coins, and the one in New York bears no such marks.
Might the real one still be out there?
"I think so," says Albanese. "But how are
you going to prove it?"
Maybe the stock market isn't such a bad place to invest,
after all.
