If you could only own one coin for the rest of your life, what would it be, pictures welcomed!

@RockyMtnProspector said:
An octagonal $50 Pan Pac in gem, like this one:

Either EXHR or this (round also).

Funny story that could have turned out very bad.

If any one asks or cares, this experience resulted in the the obvious First Rule of Coin Authentication being formulated as I sat in the Numismatic Dept. at the Smithsonian: In order to authenticate a coin you must know what the genuine piece looks like.

In 1972, a man came into the ANA's Authentication Service with a Pan Pac slug he wished to have authenticated. The coin was his worn down VF pocket piece. We told him to come back in a few hours. We took a look at the coin under the scope and determined it was probably a cast counterfeit! The surfaces were very wavy and the design was mushy. What the heck, it was a perfect summer day in DC (low humidity) and Hoskins suggested we take a walk over to the museum to look at one of the examples in the National Collection.

Long story short - the pocket piece coin was 100% genuine. It turns out these coins look different than any others. In the case of this very worn coin, the "key" to its authenticity was its perfectly shaped, sharp "S" mint mark - exactly as found on many coins in this time period! Aside from the "S" and having never seen one of these in hand before, even the high grade genuine coins in the collection looked like cast counterfeits! That summer day, an important lesson was learned to be passed down in counterfeit seminars since then.

Well, some variety of California USA Assay Office/Augustus Humbert $50 slug. I would hope to be able to pick the specific coin.

I am also partial to the Roman/Augustus gold coin with the heifer on the reverse. It would be nicer to pick the specific coin, but this one is pretty scarce in private hands.

Obviously it goes without saying that this photo is a rip.