[CPProt.net] Letter Carrier Tries To Pawn Rare Coin Worth$275,000

[MSN CPPnet (Ton Cremers)]

Letter Carrier Tries To Pawn Rare Coin Worth $275,000
Suspect Ditches Coin In Police Chase

POSTED: 11:47 am EDT August 10, 2005
UPDATED: 12:05 pm EDT August 10, 2005

PHILADELPHIA -- An off-duty letter carrier accused of trying to pawn a
stolen gold coin worth $275,000 was arrested with the help of an alert coin
dealer, but investigators still can't find the rare 1907 coin.

Police initially thought suspect Ernest Wilson might have swallowed the coin
as they closed in, and took him to a hospital for X-rays, to no avail.

"I could see him literally throwing it, just to be rid of it," said dealer
Robert Higgins of Wilmington, Del. "Unfortunately, it's an incredible coin
that is now lost, possibly forever."

Authorities allege that Wilson stole the coin, which was being sent to
Higgins registered mail from California, and tried to sell it July 30 at an
indoor farmer's market in Pennsylvania.

"That kind of coin just doesn't walk into a local coin shop. It doesn't
happen," Higgins said.

When the shop clerk suggested that the coin was worth six figures, the
apparently stunned seller stepped outside for a few minutes. Higgins,
consulted by phone, confirmed the serial number and called police. Troopers
arrived in time to arrest Wilson, but couldn't find the coin despite
searching the suspect's car and the surrounding area. Then they got a search
warrant to take the X-rays.

"We got a search warrant on his person," Trooper Keye Wysocki of the state
police in Media said. "And no coin. We do not know where it's at."

The coin was one of just 42 "rolled-edge" $10 gold coins made at the
Philadelphia Mint in 1907, but never circulated because of an intricate,
raised design that proved troublesome both to produce and to stack.

The design by sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, commissioned by President
Theodore Roosevelt to redesign the nation's money, has the profile of an
American Indian with a headband reading "Liberty" on the coin face and an
eagle on the other side.

The missing coin had a pristine rating; only two of the surviving 1907
rolled-edge Indians had a higher grading, Higgins said. Even if the coin is
found, its value has likely plummeted.

The thief had torn off the top of the plastic case in which it was sealed,
exposing it to air, Higgins said.

"Damage to a coin like that can literally take it from a $300,000 coin to
$50,000 really fast," he said.

Wilson, a postal employee in Wilmington, Del., was charged with receiving
stolen property and was being held in the Delaware County Prison. He does
not have a listed home number and it was not immediately clear if he had a
lawyer.

Authorities said he hid the coin after showing it to a clerk at Diamond
State Coins & Currency at the farmer's market stand in Boothwyn, Pa., a few
miles from Higgins' store in Wilmington.

"It's like slashing a painting. It's damaged forever," said Don Ketterling,
a coin dealer in California who works with Higgins. "You (want to) keep it
for further generations so they can enjoy it as an artifact."

Wilson sold several other coins to Diamond State for $3,100, police said.
They are now investigating whether the coins were stolen from a separate
mailing. 

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