The 1933 Gold Double Eagle was Never Officially Issued:
The U.S. Gold Double Eagle, Saint-Gaudens type, had been issued from 1907 until 1932. Although 445,500 Double Eagles had been minted with the 1933 date, none were released into circulation because of changes made to currency laws during the Great Depression. In an effort to end the run on the banks and stabilize the economy, President Franklin Roosevelt took America off the gold standard. Not only were no more gold coins to be issued for circulation, people had to turn in th

The 1933 Double Eagles are Ordered to be Destroyed:
It became illegal for private citizens to own gold coins, unless they clearly had a collectible value. This law was enacted during desperate times to prevent the hoarding of gold currency. Since there would be no more gold currency issued in the U.S., the Mint had melted down the 1933 run of Gold Double Eagles and converted them to gold bullion bars by 1937.

The Coin of a King:
Israel Switt sold at least 9 of the 1933 Double Eagles privately to collectors, one of which found its way into the collection of King Farouk of Egypt. When the Secret Service discovered that these coins had surfaced, they confiscated them all because they were considered to be stolen property of the U.S. Mint. However, King Farouk had legally exported his coin before the theft was discovered, and the Secret Service was unable to recover his specimen through diplomatic channels.

The 1913 Liberty Head Nickel is one of the most valuable coins in the world. Only 5 specimens are confirmed to exist, although there is an intriguing hint that there might be a sixth. The finest-known 1913 Liberty Nickel is valued at a minimum of $5 million, the price for which it sold in May of 2007.
The Liberty Head Nickel's Controversial Beginnings

The Liberty Head Nickel, designed by Charles E. Barber, was minted from 1883 to 1913. Like nickels still being minted today, the coin actually has more copper in it than nickel, being comprised of 75% copper and only 25% nickel. The Liberty Head Nickel type, also called a V Nickel because of the large V on its reverse, was a well-publicized coin from the very beginning.

Officials at the Mint failed to place the word CENTS on the coin, and it wasn't long before enterprising scammers began plating the nickels in gold and passing them off as $5 gold pieces! This was possible because the Liberty Head Nickel was a brand new type, and people weren't familiar with it yet, plus it was about the same diameter as the $5 gold piece. Without the word CENTS on the coin, all the scammer had to do was buy a small item priced below 5 cents, pay with a gold-plated nickel, and wait to see whether he got change for 5 cents or $5. In one well-publicized court trial, a jury was unable to convict the alleged scammer because nobody could testify that he had ever said that the coins were worth $5. Perhaps the only reason he never said it was that he was a deaf-mute!
An Early Media Darling - The Liberty Head Nickel

Rumors began to fly, fueled by the press and by coin dealers with specimens to sell, that the new Liberty Head Nickel was about to be recalled by the Mint because of the serious "error" of omitting the denomination. People began hoarding them, and today, 1883 "no cents" specimens can readily be found in high grades as a result. The Mint changed the design of the Liberty Nickel to add the word CENTS about halfway through the mintage run. Thus it was that the Liberty Head Nickel became a favorite of the coin dealers and the media from its very inception

New Orleans coinages were limited, especially after 1853. Most of the final date. 1861-O was made under the Confederacy. As the same dies were used before and after the rebels seized the branch mint, it is impossible to tell with certainty whether any given coin was made under the Union or the rebels. But as the Union made only [5,000] out of [17,741], the chances are 71% (or 7 to 3 odds) that your specimen left the press while rebel flags flew over the building.

Auction Appearances and Collateral Evidence:
The 1861-O double eagle is very rare and one of the more historically interesting Type 1 double eagles. The issue was struck by three different governmental authorities. It has been estimated that the federal government struck 5,000 coins, the state of Louisiana 9,750 coins, and the Confederacy 2,991 coins. Unfortunately, it cannot be determined with certainty which mint struck which coins. There are probably fewer than 200 coins known in all grades, most of which are Very Fine or Extremely Fine. High-grade examples are very rare and desirable. Most display partially prooflike surfaces. The finest known example, which resides in the collection of the Smithsonian, is an amazing AU-53 coin with prooflike surfaces.

Number of Appearances: 94 (21%)

What are the rarest collectible pennies?

The 1943 penny is a real copper penny worth about $80,000.00. Though some of these dozen beauties have sold as low as $10,000 the highest price given is a recorded $112,500 as late as 1999. One would think the $80,000 valuation should be adjusted. Times changing as they are, these pennies might fetch many times the $112,500 price to a museum only a generation or two from now. This is the most valuable collectible penny you have a real chance of scoring in a search of any old pennies. Copper you ask? But weren't the 1943 pennies all steel and coated with zinc due to the need to save copper for the war effort? Yes all but the first 12 minted which were minted from the copper already in the machine. Follow me into the vast history of the 1943 "Copper" pennies.

Likely the first 1943 copper penny discovered was noted among a handful of pocket change around 1947. There was another discovery later that year which gained quite a bit of notoriety. The government in the form of the Philadelphia Mint denied there were any 1943 coppers as late as 1947. We're not certain there were only 12 but that there were about 12 copper 1943 pennies known to have been minted by accident, when copper blanks (from which pennies are pressed) were used which were unwittingly left in the press hopper when production started on the new pennies of zinc coated steel.

The rarest penny known to still exist in any form is the 1793. There are only four that we know of and that's why you are unlikely to ever find one, unless you find the missing 5th penny, if there even is one. These four are each valued at around $275,000.00. One oddity of the penny was the Liherty where an h was substituted for the obvious b. The penny today is in shortage in some places through piggy bank and collector hoarding and often banks will trade a crisp dollar for less than 100