I recently read that a middle aged guy was going through some loose change and found an odd looking nickel dated 1913. Upon investigating he discovered that it was an extremely rare “liberty head” nickel that was worth over four million dollars.
I sighed. I was organizing my taxes and I thought that an extra four or 5 million dollars would come in handy right now. “Some people have all the luck,” I told my partner. “They find nickels worth millions of dollars. That would never happen to me.”
“You use your debit card for everything,” he pointed out sensibly. “You can’t find a fortune in your loose change if you don’t have any loose change.”
He had a point so I decided right then to start paying cash when I shopped so I could examine the change. Within 48 hours I had a surprisingly large bowl of coins on my dresser, but no fortune. After a week I was bored and frustrated and had decided to go back to using my debit card, but on a whim I gave the cashier at Publix a $20 bill to pay for some groceries and in return got back a handful of coins that included an Indian head nickel.
I remembered that Indian heads were old coins because, for good luck, my dad always carried an Indian head nickel dated 1919, the year he was born. Now, thinking of my dad, I turned the coin over to find the date and then turned it over again. And again. The coin had no date. Incredulous, I remembered reading somewhere that a design flaw like that made a coin very rare. And very valuable. Heart beating wildly I realized I had just hit my version of the Lotto. “Thanks, Dad!” I said out loud.
On the way home from Publix I started to count my chickens. My first thought was to buy myself a new car since my 10-year old Nissan is really a disgrace. But it occurred to me that my nickel was way more valuable than that so I decided to pay off the mortgage, imagining my Facebook post: “I just paid off the house for a nickel!”
I put my groceries on the counter and immediately went on-line to determine the exact value of my windfall. I learned that Indian head nickels were produced from about 1913 until the mid-1920s and that, due to a design flaw, the date on the coins wore off with frequent handling. I regarded this as a good sign; I know that flaws like that make old coins quite valuable.
Next I learned that a dateless Indian head nickel could be worth “substantially more than face value.” Heart beating rapidly, I decided that after I sold my nickel at Sotheby’s I would not only buy a car and pay off the house but also retire and endow my own charitable foundation, like Bill and Melinda Gates did. Panting slightly, I clicked a link to determine the value of my rare, priceless nickel.
“Although there are still millions of these coins in circulation,” I read, “an undated Indian head nickel could still be worth two or three times face value!”
My mood deflating rapidly, I did some fast arithmetic and figured that my nickel was worth, at most, 15 cents. I slammed my laptop shut and in a sour mood I threw my nickel into the bowl on my dresser with the other common coins.
Soon after my partner came home. “What’s new?” he said.
I laughed without humor. “I hit the Lotto,” I told him.
