WCT News

In 1837, Americans needed small change. They also needed confidence.

The Panic of 1837 shook banks, businesses, merchants, and households. As fear spread, many people hoarded gold and silver. Soon, even small coins became harder to find. That shortage created an opening for private tokens. It also gave Dr. Lewis Feuchtwanger a chance to prove a bold idea.

Feuchtwanger believed the United States could replace its bulky copper large cent with a smaller, cheaper, and more practical coin. Congress rejected his proposal. However, the public embraced his token.

Today, the 1837 Feuchtwanger Cent stands as one of the most important American private issues of the 19th century. It belongs to the Hard Times token series. Yet it also points forward. In many ways, this dime-sized experiment helped anticipate the small-cent revolution that followed decades later.

A new Beverly Hills gallery has brought together early U.S. gold, landmark American currency, fine art, historic antiques, and one extraordinary connection between American sculpture and coinage.

Lipton Coins, Fine Art & Antiques has opened its gallery at 9478 W. Olympic Blvd. in Beverly Hills, California. The operation serves rare coin and paper money collectors as well as buyers and sellers of precious metals, fine art, decorative arts, and antiques.

However, one object immediately separates the gallery from a conventional coin shop.

A three-and-a-half-foot gilded bronze reduction of Augustus Saint-Gaudens’ famous Victory stands among the displays. The gallery says the sculpture carries a $3 million insurance valuation.

For numismatists, that statue carries special significance. Saint-Gaudens’ monumental Victory helped give birth to the Liberty figure on his celebrated $20 Double Eagle…

The United States Mint has revealed the six designs that will appear on one of its most distinctive commemorative coin programs of 2027.

On September 21, representatives from the U.S. Mint, America’s VetDogs, and the Guide Dog Foundation gathered at the White House in Washington, D.C., to unveil designs for the 2027 Working Dogs Commemorative Coin Program.

The three-coin program will include a $5 gold coin, a silver dollar, and a clad half dollar. Together, the coins recognize therapy dogs, guide and service dogs, military working dogs, and police K-9s.

However, the program does more than celebrate working dogs.

Congress structured the program to raise money for America’s VetDogs. The nonprofit trains and provides assistance dogs to veterans, active-duty service members, and first responders with disabilities. Public Law 118-109 authorizes surcharges on each coin, with eligible proceeds going to the …

Most collectors know what appears on the face of a coin. Far fewer ever see the machinery that created its edge.

A remarkable discovery from Malaysia changes that.

A two-piece steel tooling set used to apply lettering to Malaysia’s 50 sen coin has surfaced from an old-time collection of mint errors, dies, and production equipment. The set includes a massive edge-lettering block and the corresponding circular lettering tool. Together, they created the incuse inscription found along the edge of Malaysia’s 50 sen coin.

Mike Byers, publisher and editor of MintErrorNews, describes the pair as the first complete edge-lettering block set from any world mint known in private hands. He also reports that no second example has surfaced. Because that claim involves mint equipment worldwide, CoinWeek treats the “first” and “unique” status as the discovery report’s current assessment rather…

At first glance, this 1864 Two-Cent Piece looks like a handsome Mint State survivor from the Civil War. Tilt the reverse under the right light, however, and something unexpected appears.

A second coin seems to emerge from the bronze.

Above the S in CENTS, collectors can see part of the profile of Liberty from an Indian Head cent. The nose and lips provide the most recognizable clues. Yet those features have no business appearing on a two-cent piece.

They exist because the reverse die somehow came into direct contact with an Indian Head cent obverse die.

The result became one of the most fascinating die varieties in the entire two-cent series: the 1864 Large Motto FS-1901 multi-denominational die clash.

CAC selected this example, graded CAC MS64RB, as its Coin of the Week for September 23, 2026.

PCGS separately recognizes FS-1901 …

The American Numismatic Association will raise membership dues on November 1, 2026, as higher operating costs put pressure on one of the hobby’s largest educational organizations.

The ANA says inflation over the past several years drove the Board of Governors to approve the new pricing. The association has traditionally tried to keep membership affordable while maintaining its publications, educational programs, library, museum, conventions, and collector outreach.

For many members, the most visible change will add $10 to the cost of a one-year membership.

Gold digital membership will rise from the current $35 annual rate to $45. Platinum membership, which includes the printed edition of The Numismatist, will increase from $55 to $65.

Senior Platinum membership will rise from $50 to $60. Meanwhile, annual Gold Young Numismatist membership will move from $16 to $26, while Pl…

A nickel once bought a cup of coffee, a newspaper, or part of a meal. In the hands of an itinerant artist, however, five cents could become something entirely different.

A face could grow a beard. A derby could replace a feather. The American bison could become a donkey, elephant, turtle, boxcar, or wandering traveler.

Those miniature sculptures became known as hobo nickels. Today, the best examples rank among the most distinctive forms of American numismatic folk art.

On September 28, 2026, collectors will get a rare opportunity to pursue them on an extraordinary scale.

Kagin’s Auctions will begin dispersing the Candace D. Kagin Collection of Hobo Nickels, a collection of more than 600 pieces. Kagin’s bills it as the largest and finest collection of hobo nickels ever assembled and offered for sale. The collection includes more…

For coin and currency collectors, the U.S. Treasury has produced far more than money.

For more than two centuries, its artists, engravers, sculptors, and architects helped create many of the images Americans now associate with the nation itself. Liberty. The American eagle. The buffalo. Classical figures of progress and knowledge. Even the words and symbols carried in millions of pockets became part of a much larger visual language.

A new Washington, D.C., exhibition brings many of those objects together.

Shaping American Identity: The Art of the US Department of the Treasury opened September 19, 2026, at the Milken Center for Advancing the American Dream. The free exhibition includes coins, paper money, original artwork, wartime posters, architectural drawings, photographs, and other Treasury-related material rarely displayed togethe…

Most great American coin rarities became rare because the Mint struck very few of them.

The 1974 aluminum cent followed a completely different path.

The Philadelphia Mint struck 1,571,167 examples. Then Congress killed the idea. The Mint ordered the coins destroyed. A handful escaped the recall. Decades later, one Denver example carried a potential value of up to $2 million.

Yet collectors never got the chance to bid on it.

Instead, the federal government demanded the coin back.

That twist separates the 1974 aluminum cent from almost every other famous Lincoln cent. Its story does not revolve around mintage alone. It revolves around ownership.

Can something become one of America’s greatest numismatic rarities if the government says nobody ever acquired legal title to it?

More than 50 years after the experiment began, that question still gives the 1974 alu…

On the eve of the 20th century, the United States placed a Native American portrait on the face of a $5 Silver Certificate. Collectors now call the note the “Chief” or “Indian Chief” note. Importantly, this issue marked the first time a Native American appeared as the central subject on American paper money.

Collectors have debated the identity of the man for more than a century. He appeared on the note as Ta-to’-ka-in’-yan-ka, commonly known as Running Antelope. That debate never faded. Auction prices and decades of commentary prove it.

In 1978, Coins magazine called the notes “the high point in US paper money design.”[1] Later, Coin World called the design “the most familiar image of a Native American on a piece of U.S. paper money.”[2] Heinz Tschachler, an Austrian professor of American Studies, described the portrait as “an icon of American nationalism.”[3]

Native American…