1793 penny fetches $1.38M at US auction

ORLANDO, Florida – A one-cent copper coin from the earliest days of the U.S. Mint in 1793 has sold for a record $1.38 million at a Florida auction.

This undated photo provided by Heritage Auctions shows the front and back of one of the first pennies struck at the United States Mint in Philadelphia. This 1793 “Chain Cent” was sold for a record $1,380,000 in a public auction conducted by Heritage Auctions at a coin collector’s convention in Orlando, Fla. on Wednesday evening (Jan. 4, 2012). AP PHOTO/HERITAGE AUCTIONS

James Halperin of Texas-based Heritage Auctions told The Associated Press on Saturday that the sale was “the most a United States copper coin has ever sold for at auction.” The coin was made at the Mint in Philadelphia in 1793, the first year that the U.S. made its own coins.

Heritage officials said in a news release that the name of the buyer was not revealed but that he was “a major collector.” One of the coin’s earliest owners was a well-known Baltimore banker, Louis E. Eliasberg, Sr.

“Mr. Eliasberg was nicknamed, ‘the king of coins’ because before his death in 1976 he assembled a collection that consisted of at least one example of every coin ever made at the United States Mint, a feat never duplicated,” Halperin said in the news release.

The final bid for the coin last week was one of the largest sales at the Florida United Numismatists coin show and annual convention, which runs through Sunday. Halperin said a five-dollar gold piece from 1829 also was sold.

Halperin said there remain a few hundred 1793 coins in different condition, but that the one auctioned off Wednesday night was rare because it wasn’t in circulation.

Officials said it shows no wear on its lettering, its Lady Liberty face or the chain of 13 linking rings on its back.

“This coin is known as a ‘Chain Cent’ because the central design on the back is a chain of 13 linking rings. It represented the solidarity of the 13 original colonies, but some critics claimed the chain was symbolic of slavery, and the design was quickly changed from rings to a wreath,” Halperin said in the news release.

Halperin said the auction had $60 million in transactions. The show runs through Sunday.