(photo courtesy of Heritage Auctions)
Show me the money! Clutter-clearing is hard enough without trying to determine whether the items in question are valuable. And in this quirky world, it can be next to impossible to guess what’s trash or treasure. So I’m cornering the experts for some professional down-sizing advice in a new Parade.com column Toss or Treasure. From my father’s old penny jar and kids’ baseball cards to Great Grandma Jenny’s purple dog head pin, I’m on a mission to discover what items in my attic and yours are worth studying, treasuring, tossing, donating or cashing in.
This time, we’re covering coinage—one of the most confusing categories in my clutter. Even if you roll it, banks won’t take it. If you save it, it becomes a weighty eyesore. And if you cash it in at a change machine, you’ll be paid the same for valuable rarities and ordinary pennies.
Whether you’ve found a cool collection in the attic, an unusual coin on the beach, or just have a whopping jar of copper currency laying around the house, how can you tell if you’ve got a valuable collectible or just a chunk of change? I got the scoop from a true numismatist, expert Mark Borckardt, senior cataloger of U.S. coins at Heritage Auctions. Check out my Q & A with Borckardt below, and see if you’ve got a pretty penny or two….
If you ran across a big Mason jar of pennies from your great-grandmother’s attic, would you cash them in or comb through the lot for a valuable outlier?
I would definitely spend a lot of time looking at each piece, especially if the Mason jar came from my great-grandmother Sophia Borckardt who died in 1928. I would start by sorting them by type, either Indian Head cents or Lincoln cents, then I would access the Price Guide for Beginners. For every series of coins, the price guide gives basic values for most dates, along with a list of the rare dates to watch for.
Everyone wants to win the lottery. So what coin is out there somewhere that we could stumble upon and how would we recognize it?
In 1943, the U.S. government produced one cent coins in zinc-coated steel, and they are sometimes called white cents due to their color (unless they have rusted), then they look more like regular copper cents. Copper cents were discontinued that year as copper was a strategic material needed for the war effort during World War II. However, a small number of copper cents were made in 1943 by mistake, and those pieces sell for six figures today. Examples could still be found, as unlikely as it might be. Keep a magnet handy, because unscrupulous individuals took great joy in copper plating the 1943 steel cents to look like they are the 1943 copper rarities. If the coin is magnetic, it is steel. If it is not magnetic, email a clear photo to the rare coin professionals at Heritage for further guidance.
Have you ever encountered a coin that was discovered by one of those people on the beach with a metal detector?
Yes, on a regular basis. Most are very low value items, but every now and then, something truly exciting is found by the metal detecting community. But don’t just think of the old man in black socks and sandals searching the beach. A nearly endless number of stories of metal detector finds may be found on the internet. The community has its own service organization, several magazines, and even a television show called Diggers on the National Geographic channel.
What is the most valuable coin you ever touched?
There were exactly five Liberty Head nickels struck at the Philadelphia Mint in 1913, the year that the famous Buffalo nickel was first produced. The older design, more commonly known as the V nickel for the large Roman Numeral V on the reverse, was supposed to end in 1912. It was seven years before the five pieces dated 1913 appeared in public, presumably because they were made under odd circumstances and seven years most likely had something to do with the statute of limitations. One of the five went missing in 1962, and a massive hunt for the missing coin took place in 2003. The missing coin was located, and a “reunion” of all five pieces took place in Baltimore that year. I was one of the six authenticators who examined all five pieces, to make sure the relocated piece was the genuine coin that had gone missing and not an imposter. Today, the value of each of the five nickels (two are in museums), ranges from $3 million to $5 million dollars. In addition to that episode, I have personally researched and cataloged about three dozen coins that are valued north of $1 million.
Coin collecting was a popular hobby for many baby boomers and their parents and grandparents. Now as boomers begin to downsize, how can they determine whether their collections were a hobby or an investment?
The simple answer is to have the collection appraised. If it is worth more than the cost of the coins, then it was an investment. If it is worth less, then it was a hobby. The rare coin professionals at Heritage Auctions are always ready to assist with valuation and disposition of any collection.
Do tell―when you get change at the drive-thru window or grocery store counter, do you toss it in your pocket or are you compelled to analyze it just in case?
I will glance at my pocket change to make sure there isn’t something unusual, and from more than 40 years as a professional numismatist, my eye goes right to the unusual, such as an 1891-dated Indian cent that I received in change a couple years ago. I will always look at my change to spot any silver coins, which do show up from time-to-time, but certainly not every day, or week, or month, or even year. But do I take the time to study and analyze my pocket change? No.
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Nancy Berk, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist, author, comic and entertainment analyst. The host of the showbiz podcast Whine At 9, Nancy digs a little deeper as she chats with fascinating celebrities and industry insiders. Her book College Bound and Gagged: How to Help Your Kid Get into a Great College Without Losing Your Savings, Your Relationship, or Your Mind can be seen in the feature film Admission starring Tina Fey and Paul Rudd.
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