http://www.icgcoin.com/p050701.htm

interesting..

I wonder if the Secret Service has okayed the ownership of this piece. If they went after the Gaudens why not the 74 Cent? If was never issued by the mint and they were supposed to be collected and melted.

wow! The story seems plausible. The US Government's reaction will be interesting, since the mint did originally give the specimans to congress. I say let them keep it!

My first guess at an auction price- $2-2.5 million.

Now for the 64 Peace dollars...

Ciao, and Hook 'em Horns,
Capt-AWACS, Forum alpha breeder male

I would expect to see a challenge and then a settlement, Just like the 1933 Gaudens,, Uncle is a reasonable person and willing to make things ok, after all!!

The coin will be made legitimate!! it wont be cheap !!! but it will happen!!

Rick

That's really neat.

Very interesting - I never knew about the aluminum cents. Thanks.

Capt AWACS is right, that only leaves the 64 Peace Dollar to surface and all of the Modern US Mythical Coins will have been realized.

i guess time magazine or something like newsweek or whatever had a picture of a 1967 D lincoln on the cover in 1967.... i never found out if it ever existed or not....

i vaguely remember hearing about this '74.. but not really, so i'll just say it's news to me all kinds of good stuff hitting the news lately..


did i hear about a 1963 kennedy once upon a time.... :shrug:


i wish i had a roll of aluminum 1974 pennies...

how do you think ICG convinced him to go through them... or why did he contact them... i wonder

Probably PCGS and NGC did not want to touch it with a ten foot sonic welder. It does not have the glamour of the 33 Gaudens and may still be confiscated by the SS. I guess they thought it would have more downside than upside potential and with the Ohio Coin Fund scam still fresh in the mind of the public this would be an instance of "bad press".

Well Al cents are a new one on me...

Why the metal change? Was it to see if they could produce them more cheaply? But they figured Zincolns were better?


I never used to like Al coins but i've got to say i've warmed up to them alot recently ever since i branched out into German coins, with a hint of lustre they look kinda alright and they seem to wear alright. The weight of the coins seems to be their downside though. Although they deal with corrosion better than Cu based coins, which have a habit of turning nasty shades of furry green in the wrong conditions.

From wikipedia:

During the early 1970s the price of copper rose to a point where the penny almost contained one cent's worth of copper. This led the Mint to test alternate metals, including aluminum and bronze-clad steel. Aluminum was chosen, and over 1.5 million of these were struck and ready for public release before ultimately being rejected. About a dozen aluminum cents are believed to still be in the hands of collectors, although they are now considered illegal, and are subject to seizure by the Secret Service. One aluminum cent was donated to the Smithsonian Institution.

The price of copper later returned to profitable levels, so that the Mint would not need to change the cent's composition until 1982.

God forbid a cent was almost actually worth a cent! !

These days it's all about profit...

Very interesting. If I had a coin like that I wouldn't know what to do.

Wow, that coin is the ultimate loser in my book:

1. Struck in beer can material

2. Abe Lincoln on the obverse

Those are two irredeemable demerits, then strike three is:

3. Slabbed

It's outta here. ;-)

Number 3) !

How could i have been so stupid?


Slabbed...

NGC and PCGS both have stated plainly that they would be more than happy to certify these coins or any others of questionable legality.

WoW...thats really neat

Not saying it's not about profit, but if the cent contained more than one cent of copper it would not circulate for long - the aluminum cents might have made good sense

Wow, That will be an interesting story to follow.

With 1.5 million made, I'll bet there's more than 12 examples out there.

Only a couple of dozen ever left the mint as demos to the congressmen on the committies involved in the process. The rest were left in the mint.

I wonder if any of them wound up in local Bordellos the way the Stellas did

Most definately for sure; but you know, silver quarters and dimes still circulate in the US, after how long they have been gone.

But most certainly aluminum pennies would have been really interesting. There are not too many countries that still mint aluminum coins, except poorer nations that are stripped out of all sorts of metals.

With a coin of this rarity, the particular certification company doesn't matter all that much (among the big 4) as the rarity will drive the price, not who certified it. So then the only thing the owner has to be concerned about is the longterm protection of the coin. With that in mind, many people think that the ICG does the best job of protecting coins from tarnishing, since they use the intercept shields in thier slabs. I'm not saying this is absolutly the reason he chose them, but it is something to consider...

a nice related story:
http://www.uspatterns.com/uspatterns/19alcen.html

...so is the '74 bronze clad steel cent. Also considerred "illegal" to own.

This happened in '75, as well:

http://uspatterns.com/uspatterns/j2155.html

Very cool! Bring on the '64 Peaces.

Look at copper prices, right now, actually. But "dirty" copper is bought at considerable discounts, so it's not worthwhile, especially since it's illegal anyways.

Hmm... this is only the second time I've seen a pic of a privately owned '74 alum. cent. I wonder if it's the same one?

< over 1.5 million of these were struck and ready for public release before ultimately being rejected. >

This 1.5 million were not intended for circulation. They were a test run to see how well the equipment would handle an actual production run. Something not widely known is that the 1974 Aluminum cents were actually struck in mid 1973.

< that only leaves the 64 Peace Dollar to surface and all of the Modern US Mythical Coins will have been realized. >

I have another one that almost no one knows about. 2000-S business strike Sac dollar. They never made 2000-S Sacs for circulation, but they did do a production test run of them like they did the 74 Al cents.

I don't think the 2000S Sac has acheived the level of Mythical Coin in the numismatic world just yet

I think that's only because very people even know they exist.

i hear ya,,, but i bet ya anything a pcgs label or even ngc would bring in at least another $1... that's just how conditioned we are at this point i think. from what i've seen it's sad but true.. i just had 8 morgans on ebay, all were ngc except one was ntc.. that was the only one that didn't sell.

if igc sent an au58 back to me i might see what the others would say... which, like you said, wouldn't matter too much i suppose.. the rarity is what'll drive this one regardless.. but still, i wonder what went on behind the scenes here..