The E-Sylum:  Volume 10, Number 30, July 29, 2007, Article 27

NEWSPAPER RECOUNTS 1894-S DIME'S CROSS-COUNTRY JOURNEY

Other news reports recounted the journey of another rare coin:

"John Feigenbaum flew out of San Jose this week in first class,
with flip-flops on his feet, a T-shirt on his back and a dime
worth $1.9 million in his pocket.

'All the way across the country I didn't sleep,'' Feigenbaum said.
'I didn't eat and I didn't sleep. You wouldn't, either.''

Feigenbaum is a rare coin dealer, and the dime he was carrying
across the country, from San Jose to New York, is an 1894-S dime,
one of only nine known to exist, and one of only 24 known to be
coined that year in San Francisco.

It was his job to pick up the dime from the seller's vault, in
Oakland, and deliver the dime to the buyer's vault, in midtown
Manhattan.

But the dime's cross-country trip was the stuff of intrigue, of
that there is no mistake. The logistics of moving a $1.9 million
dime across the country turn out to be at least as staggering as
the notion of paying $1.9 million for a dime.

It was on Monday afternoon that Feigenbaum, a 38-year-old coin
dealer from Virginia Beach, donned his best grubby clothes to
meet the seller's representative at an Oakland bank vault.
Feigenbaum was slumming it so as not to attract attention, he said.

He was too nervous to sleep, he said. He did not watch the
in-flight movie, which was 'Firehouse Dog.'' He turned down a
Reuben sandwich and sensibly declined all offers of alcoholic
beverages.

At Newark airport, he was met by another security guard in another
ordinary sedan. The two men drove to Manhattan, arriving an hour
before the opening of the buyer's bank vault.

The buyer was waiting at the curb for Feigenbaum, however. With
an hour to kill, the two men went into a nearby Starbucks. Neither
man dared to take out the dime and look at it. They sipped their
beverages and stared at their watches.

At 9 a.m., the vault opened. The two men and the guard went inside
and, for the first time, the buyer got to hold his dime."

To read the complete article, see:
Full Story

Arthur Shippee forwarded a link to a National Public Radio interview
with Feigenbaum about the dime. It aired on 'All Things Considered'
July 28, 2007: "Rare coin dealer John Feigenbaum just sold a dime
for nearly two million dollars. Host Jacki Lyden talks to Feigenbaum
about why coin collectors are so excited by this particular dime."

To listen to the NPR interview with Feigenbaum, see:
Full Story

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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