ARTICLE PROFILES ERROR COIN DEALER FRED WEINBERG

Known as a specialist in error coins and the minting process, and as an author on those subjects, Fred Weinberg from Fred Weinberg & Co. said he never intended to make a career from the hobby he was introduced to at age 9. Weinberg is also a specialist in U.S. gold coins.

While in college in Southern California in 1972, Weinberg said, he received a phone call from Jonathan’s Coins, in Inglewood, Calif., one of the largest coin shops in the country, to come to the shop and help in the purchase of a collection of error coins.

“I drove down to the shop, bought the deal, and the owner offered me a job, right then and there,” Weinberg said. “It took me three or four days to be able to tell my parents that I was quitting college and becoming a full-time coin dealer.”

“In 1972, at least [from my perspective] in Los Angeles,” Weinberg said, “the coin business consisted of coin shops, Coin World, a few coin shows, and a relatively small number of national coin dealers. Stack’s, Bowers and Ruddy, Paramount, as well as Lester Merkin, Abe Kosoff, Jerry Cohen and Abner Kreisberg, Art Kagin, Q. David Bowers, Audrey Bebee are just a very few of the older ‘names’ that I remember meeting at that time, at the larger shows in Southern California.”

Local coin shops all seemed to be the same — small, smoky, somewhat messy and unorganized, especially in the back offices, Weinberg said.

After working at Jonathan’s Coins for a year, Weinberg said, he was offered a job by collector-turned-dealer Harry Gordon of Numismatics Ltd., in Beverly Hills.

Weinberg said that, starting in 1973, he began accompanying Gordon to Europe, visiting banks and coin dealers in Switzerland, France, England, Germany, Lichtenstein, and other places, buying thousands of U.S. gold coins every six to eight weeks.

One of those trips, in 1977, yielded a copper rarity — a 1794 Liberty Cap, High Relief half cent. Weinberg acquired the coin plus a 1916 Standing Liberty quarter dollar at a small coin show outside Zurich for the equivalent of $1,200 in U.S. funds.

The half cent was subsequently placed for $35,000 in 1978 into what eventually became known as the Missouri Cabinet.

The 1794 half cent, now graded PCGS MS-67 ... realized $1.15 million when it was sold Jan. 26, 2014, at the Missouri Cabinet auction by Ira & Larry Goldberg, Auctioneers.

To read the complete article, see:
Fred Weinberg makes a living off of other people's mistakes (www.coinworld.com/insights/coin-production-errors-bread-and-butter-for-fred-weinberg.html)

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