Rare Canadian penny “dot cent” sold for $253,000

A numismatic rarity – a Canadian cent, known as the King of Canadian Coins has been sold for 253 thousand dollars. According to Heritage auction house spokesman, the lot was acquired at the auction in the Chicago suburb by a Canadian collector.

The Royal Canadian Mint minted only three “dot cent” Canadian pennies. The reverse of the coin bears the profile of Great Britain’s King George V.

At the time the nation’s coin-makers were scrambling to prevent a shortage of properly stamped coppers. The crisis loomed at the end of a year in which George V died and his son, Edward VIII, became king for only a brief reign before abdicating in favour of his younger brother, George VI.

Canadian officials, lacking a profile portrait of the unexpected new king to stamp on the country’s coinage, prepared for a stopgap re-minting of the old George V design.

From 1951 to 1996 all three coins were kept in the collection of the famous American coin collector John Pittman. After his death, one was sold in 1999 for $ 115,000 dollars, the second in 2003 – for over 230 thousand dollars, and then re-sold in 2004 for 402,500.

The third fetched 207,000 in the same 2004. That was the coin put up for auction by Heritage.