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Conspiracy Theories Regarding just surfaced ex-missing 1913 Liberty Nickel
northcoin
Posts: 4,987 ✭✭✭✭✭
Calling all Numismatic detectives and Sherlock Holmes wannabees. OK, the genuine authenticated previously missing 1913 Liberty Nickel has now surfaced.......or has it? Let's hear your conspiracy theories.
How is this for a start? Someone who had the genuine missing 1913 Liberty Nickel but did not want to come forward for a myriad of possible reasons including a previous pledge of secrecy to its seller George Walton (or perhaps even having acquired it by questionable means) got in contact with a present Walton family member and offered to provide the family member with the original coin so that it could finally be liquidated. Since it was well known that the family had in its possession an altered 1913 Liberty Nickel determined to be so by no less an authority than Stack's Auction House, the recently accomplished switch-er-oo provided the perfect cover and avenue for bringing the coin out into the public, allowing it to be auctioned (or sold to a broader market of potential buyers), and hyped for maximum monetary gain.
How is this for a start? Someone who had the genuine missing 1913 Liberty Nickel but did not want to come forward for a myriad of possible reasons including a previous pledge of secrecy to its seller George Walton (or perhaps even having acquired it by questionable means) got in contact with a present Walton family member and offered to provide the family member with the original coin so that it could finally be liquidated. Since it was well known that the family had in its possession an altered 1913 Liberty Nickel determined to be so by no less an authority than Stack's Auction House, the recently accomplished switch-er-oo provided the perfect cover and avenue for bringing the coin out into the public, allowing it to be auctioned (or sold to a broader market of potential buyers), and hyped for maximum monetary gain.
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Well, My lips are sealed.
hehehe. Your very estute NC.
Didn't Abe Kosoff see the 5th one and opine that the date was altered? He was a mighty good judge of these things. 40+ years later he was wrong?
Interesting question as to whether Abe K. actually saw the coin and determined it was altered in addition to the original Stack's opinion. My guess is at least one or more members of the George Walton family knew all along that the coin was authentic (and somehow got someone at Stack's to go along with the ruse so the coin would not disappear into the Estate Sale) or the coin now being "discovered" is the original which has been substituted as hypothesized in the first post above. (Another possibility is that the family member may have substituted an altered coin purposely for the one found in the car wreck to be examined by Stack's since Stack's never held onto the "altered" coin and gave it back to the family.)
It had always seemed suspicious to me that while she was living the long time family member owner was so uncooperative about letting outsiders view the coin.
<< <i>Kosoff is reported as having said that the coin found at the Walton wreck site had an altered date, but I don't know if he actually saw the coin or was just repeating the Stacks opinion. >>
Haven't some of Kosoff's other statements from the very latter portion of his career been determined to be a little off kilter? I think I recall a Gobrecht Journal article that made some comments about him being very confused on a number of issues related to some seated coins he had reviewd at the end of his distinguished numismatic career.
Of course, that article would have just been the expression of one man's opinion.