Two businessmen, Jeff Garrett and Larry Lee, paid $3.17 million for a rare 1913 Liberty Head V nickel at the auction in Illinois, UPI informs. Just five such specimens are known to be existing; these are the most famous U.S. old coins.
Its former owner, Melva Givens of Salem, Virginia, had this coin for 41 years never trying to sell it as she thought it was not genuine. Heritage Auctions said the nickel was only found authentic in 2003. Ms Givens inherited it from coin collector George Walton in 1962. Mr Walton purchased this fifty-cent piece in the 1940s for $3,750. According to CBS News, an expert appraising the legacy left by George Walton concluded that the nickel held no value. That is why Ms Givens decided just to keep it in her closet.
In 1992, after Ms Givens deceased, her relatives passed the coin to the American Numismatic Association World's Fair of Money as it announced a million dollar award for the lost Liberty Head V coin. At that time the association already had four siblings on display.
Five-cent coins depicting the Liberty head on one side and a Roman numeral V on the other side were minted from 1883 to 1912. In 1913, the coin design was changed to an American Indian on the front and bison on the back. The existing five nickels were minted surreptitiously and became a rarity.
In 2005, one of the Liberty Head V coins was sold to Legend Numismatics, one of the U.S. premier rare coin dealers, for $4.1 million.