1792 SILVER CENTER CENT SELLS FOR $1.15 MILLION

A centuries old coin, one of the first ever produced in the United States' Mint, was sold for a whopping $1.15million at an Illinois auction on Thursday.

The famous 1792 silver-center cent was purchased by Kevin Lipton of Beverly Hills, California, on behalf of a group of unnamed investors.

On one side, the reddish-brown coin features Lady Liberty facing right with her hair flowing behind, and on the other, a wreath tied with a ribbon at the bottom encloses around the words 'ONE CENT.'

The first official coins entered circulation in February 1793, but a few experimental coins were minted as prototypes first.

The law at the time required pennies to contain 11 pennyweights of pure copper, equal to 17.1069 grams.

Rittenhouse realized that this size penny would be impossibly large and heavy, so he created alternative coins to present to Congress.

One solution was the silver-center cent, a penny with three fourths of a cent of silver surrounded by a quarter cent of copper.

It was rejected.

Congress reduced the official weight of the cent and only a few of the silver-center cents remain.

'There are only 14 known surviving silver-center cents, and this is the third finest known,' Todd Imhof, Executive Vice President of Heritage Auctions said.

In 1974, he added, the same coin sold for just $105,000.

To read the complete article, see: Now THAT'S a pretty penny! Rare coin fetches $1.15million at auction (www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2132690/Now-THATS-pretty
-penny-Rare-coin-fetches-1- 15million-auction.html)

Here's a nicer image with the holder cropped out:

To read the complete article, see: U.S. penny sells for $1.15 million (www.vancouversun.com/penny+sells+million/6492905/story.html)

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