The Rarest Coin In The US Is Worth A Grand Fortune Now

There are multiple examples of coins made in the U.S. that have face values of less than a dollar but that are actually worth huge sums of money. And just recently, a small silver coin weighing hardly more than a gram was sold for a record-breaking amount. The kicker: it was hidden in an old box within a piece of furniture.

Last summer, a silver threepence coin forged in Boston in 1652 was sold at auction for $2.52 million, a release from Stack's Bowers Galleries stated, the highest amount ever paid for a coin made prior to the American Revolution.

The coin was found in an old cabinet in the Netherlands back in 2016 and it took eight years to figure out its significance, CNN reported. Fortunately, the coin wasn't just old. It was truly historic, surrounded by a history that included Massachusetts first rebellious act against the British Empire as well as a connection to someone who would become the second president of the United States. 

The coin was made just a few weeks after the Hull Mint in Boston, run by John Hull, started operating. It was chartered by the Colony of Massachusetts, which was hungry for more currency to boost its growing economy. But the mint wasn't sanctioned by the crown nor were the coins issued with the face of the King, according to Revolutionary Spaces, a Boston-based historical organization. When the home country found out, Massachusetts lots its autonomy for a time.

Today, there are just two New England threepences around, though a third coin stolen from Yale in the 1960s may still be out there, Stack's Bowers said.

This particular coin was in a box labeled "silver token unknown/From Quincy Family/B. Ma. Dec, 1798," Stack's Bowers added. It was later determined through old letters that the coin was sent from the family of future president John Adams to a collector from England that year. After the U.S. won independence, coins minted in the U.S. grew in popularity grew in popularity in Great Britain and collector Thomas Brand Hollis repeatedly asked Adams, then an ambassador to the Netherlands, to send him some. The great grandfather of Adams' wife, Abigail, was the stepbrother of John Hull.

The $2.52 million that was paid for the 1652 threepence is not the highest amount ever forked over for a coin made in the U.S. (Or what would become the U.S.) That title belongs to the 1913 Liberty Head coin, which traded in 2022 for $4.2 million. Although the Liberty Head coin was discontinued in 1912, former U.S. Mint employee Samuel Brown advertised that he displayed his collection of five 1913-dated nickels, which he later displayed at the 1920 American Numismatic Association Convention and then sold for $600 each, according to GovMint.com. If Brown minted the coins himself, as many collectors believe, he did so illegally.

Basically, coins made on the sly makes them rare and therefore valuable to collectors. So, too, are mistakes. Double-die pennies, for example, have been sold for hundreds, thousands, or even just over a million dollars. And coins made with double-struck images or without mint dates have also garnered big bucks for sellers.