Mary Page is the one saying finders keepers with her copper-colored dime. She spotted the strange coin while counting change at the restaurant she manages. Everyone else mistook the coin for a penny.
"I counted it as a penny at first, and then I got to looking at it," Page says. "It was shinier than the older pennies. I looked at it and it was a dime."
Whatever the copper dime is worth, Page plans to share her windfall 50-50 with her sister, Betty, and her brother-in-law Terry Edwards.
"You know, having a dream thing here, you start to wonder this could be worth a lot of money," Edwards says.
At LDG Coins in Raleigh, dealer Lou Gouchie has a few misprinted coins. He has a quarter with the flip side stamped at an angle. It is considered rare, but others like it are not attracting big bidders.
"They've been selling at around $200-$250," Gouchie says.
Internet auction sites often sells misprinted coins. AteBay, one seller writes a friend was offered $100,000 for a copper dime.
"Instead of whatever somebody in this small town would pay for it, it's what someone in the world would pay for it," Edwards says.
Page says she may market her coin online. The restaurant manager says she promptly replaced the copper coin she found in the cash register with another dime.
• Credits
Copyright 2024 by Capitol Broadcasting Company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
