Lincoln rarity brings $1.7 million

Imagine that.

A 1943-D Lincoln cent with the 95-percent copper alloy instead of wartime steel has sold for $1.7 million.

That’s a ton of bucks for a Lincoln cent, but it is the only one known from the Denver Mint.

I probably would have searched cents for even longer than I did had I known back in the 1960s what kind of money might lie ahead.

But then, when I was looking for cents, finding even examples of the steel composition was almost impossible.

My congratulations go to Laura Sperber of Legend for arranging the sale, to Andy Skrabalak of Angel Dee’s Coin’s and Collectibles for acting as agent for the seller and to the anonymous former owner who reportedly “donated it to a charitable organization so they could sell it with all of the proceeds going to the charity,” according to Skrabalak.

That's a nice note of generosity in these hard times.

It is planned that this coin will be displayed at the Florida United Numismatists convention Jan. 6-8, 2011, in Tampa, with some other rarities.

That will be worth seeing.

Though it might seem superfluous to put a grade on a unique coin, the Professional Coin Grading Service calls it MS-64 Brown.

$1.7 million?

Now that’s a steal.