Rarely in 1943 copper coins could fetch a pretty ear at auction
All American pennies were made of zinc coated steel that year to save the copper needed for military necessities such as shell casing and telephone wires, according to Heritage Auctions, a Dallas-based auction house. But a small number of copper pens were created by mistake. Only a few of them exist today, making them special to coin collectors.
Lutes knew that the coin was rare and kept on it. But when his health went down last year, Lutes decided to sell the coin, said Peter Karpenski, a friend and fellow collector.
The top bid after a two-week online auction is $ 1[ads1]30,000, according to Heritage Auctions. The online auction closes at 6 am Thursday when a live auction begins at the Florida United Numismatics Convention in Orlando.
"What makes this so exciting is that it is the only time in history when the coin of this piece has been available for sale. In other words, it was the first to be found," said Sarah Miller, director of Numismatics for Heritage Auctions New York Office.
1943 copper penny "is the most famous coin", according to Heritage Auctions 19659002] Around the end of 1942, a small number of bronze planks – An ordinary metal plate stamped as a coin – trapped in the common doors of the mobile pile used to feed the blanks into the coin presses of the coin, according to Heritage Auctions. These planks went unnoticed when the trays were filled with zinc-coated steel planks in 1943, Heritage Auctions said. ] "They were eventually released and met in the coin press along with the war period forms. The few resulting copper cents were lost in the flood of millions of steel cells that were beaten in 1943 and escaped the discovery of Mint's quality-fighting measures, according to Heritage Auctions.
Miller said that 10 to 15 of the 1943 copper pens exist today.
Lutes set aside his 1943 copper penny to study it later when he found it in a bundle of change in Pittsfield High School Cafeteria in 1947.
An American lawyer, he would collect around 50,000 coins in the 1970s when he retired from the family industry, according to Karpenski. Lutes died in September 2018 at the age of 87, according to Miller.
The library is called a volunteer of the year's award after him, according to Karpenski.
And the library meant as much to Lutes.
Lutes wanted the proceeds from the sale of his valuable ear to go to the library, Miller said.
