Do you have a spare $3.49 million lying around? 

That’s the price tag brothers Martin Burns and Ron Firman have placed on the former George O. Walton example of 1913 Liberty Head 5-cent coin as a Buy It Now option on eBay.

Inside Coin World: Pick strawberries, get tokens: Strawberry pickers tokens, 1883 Liberty Head 5-cent coins and a die marriage of the 1878-CC Morgan dollar are among the topics of columns in the Nov. 26 issue of Coin World.

The brothers have owned the coin, one of just five known, for less than six months, having purchased it in June 2018 in a private transaction for between $3 million and $4 million.

The actual purchase price was not publicly disclosed.

Neither Firman nor Burns could be reached to discuss why they’ve decided to part with the numismatic rarity after such a short period of ownership.

The brothers purchased the 1913 Liberty Head 5-cent coin from co-owners Jeff Garrett from Mid-American Rare Coin Galleries in Lexington, Kentucky, and Larry Lee, from Coin and Bullion Reserves in Panama City, Florida, in a private sale brokered through Philadelphia dealer Bob Paul from Bob Paul Rare Coins.

Both Bob Paul and Jeff Garrett told Coin World Nov. 6 that they were unaware that the brothers have put the coin up for sale.

The?former Walton specimen, graded Proof 63 by Professional Coin Grading Service and assigned a green sticker by Certified Acceptance Corp. as being superior for the grade, was purchased by Garrett and Lee for $3,172,500 during an April 25, 2013, Heritage Auctions sale held in conjunction with the Central States Numismatic Society Spring Convention in Schaumburg, Illinois.

The price realized included a 17.5 percent buyer’s fee added to the final closing hammer price that Garrett bid.

Walton was killed March 9, 1962, in a head-on automobile collision on a North Carolina highway while en route to a coin show. The 1913 5-cent coin was among the coins Walton carried in his briefcase, which was recovered from the accident site.

For more than four decades, Walton’s heirs believed the 1913 5-cent coin they inherited was an altered date piece.

The 2013 auction was conducted 10 years after a six-member panel of numismatic experts that included Garrett declared the Walton coin genuine at the 2003 American Numismatic Association World’s Fair of Money in Baltimore. The other four examples of the coin were already at the convention for a public exhibit. The Walton coin was then also made part of the exhibit. 

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