N.H. man gets $4.15M for 1913 Liberty nickel

Not many people can retire on a nickel, unless it’s a rare 1913 Liberty Head that sold Thursday for more than $4 million.

Collector Ed Lee of Merrimack, N.H., bought the coin, the finest of the five known 1913 Liberty Head nickels, for nearly $3 million from California sports agent Dwight Manley two years ago. At the time, Lee joked that he would be able to retire on the nickel.

Now, he has made a profit of more than $1 million on the famous coin. Lee, president of Lee Certified Coins Ltd., sold the nickel for $4.15 million – the highest price ever paid for one of the legendary 1913 coins and the second-highest price reported for any rare coin.

The new owner is Legend Numismatics, a rare coin dealership in Lincroft, N.J.

“Owning a 1913 Liberty Head nickel is unlike owning any other coin in the world,” said Laura Sperber, the company’s co-president. It was delivered to her and her partners Thursday at a coin show in Long Beach, Calif., where it will be on display through Saturday.

“We are going to display it and enjoy the hell out of it,” Sperber said by phone.

Sperber called the 1913 nickel the most famous of American rare coins.

After being born of questionable, some say clandestine, circumstances, five 1913 Liberty Head nickels surfaced in the 1920s.

Liberty Head nickels were minted from 1883 to 1912. “Miss Liberty” was replaced the next year by the Indian or Buffalo nickel. However, five 1913 nickels depicting “Miss Liberty” were minted illegally, possibly by a mint official. They were never placed into circulation and were considered illegal to own for many years because they were not regular issue.

Now they are in great demand.

“When you own a 1913 nickel, the collectors in the world all look up to the coin,” she said. “There’s nothing like owning a 1913 nickel, period.”

The current record price for any rare coin is $7.59 million paid in July 2002 for a 1933 U.S. $20 gold piece. The previous record for a 1913 Liberty Head nickel was $3 million paid for another of the five known coins by an unidentified buyer who bought it from Sperber and Legend Numismatics last year.