Rare coin fetches US$1,15m at auction

flowing behind, and on the other, a wreath tied with a ribbon at the bottom encloses around the words ‘ONE CENT.’
The auction attracted 22 bidders for the coin, according to Heritage Auction’s website.
The coin was part of a larger offering of rare currency which fetched a total of US$12 034,262.
What makes this particular coin so valuable, according to Heritage Auctions, is it’s importance in American history.
Just 12 days after Congress passed the Mint Act of April 2, 1792, President George Washington tapped David Rittenhouse to be the Mint’s director.
At the time, the renown 18th century Philadelphia scientist and inventor was nearly 60 years old.
He jumped at the chance to make America’s money and two of the Mint’s buildings were completed by September of 1792.
The first official coins entered circulation in February 1793, but a few experimental coins were minted as prototypes first. The law at the time required pennies to contain 11 pennyweights of pure copper, equal to 17,1069 grams. Rittenhouse realised that this size penny would be impossibly large and heavy, so he created alternative coins to present to Congress.
One solution was the silver-centre cent, a penny with three fourths of a cent of silver surrounded by a quarter cent of copper.
It was rejected. Congress reduced the official weight of the cent and only a few of the silver-centre cents remain.
“There are only 14 known surviving silver-centre cents, and this is the third finest known,” Todd Imhof, Executive Vice President of Heritage Auctions said.
In 1974, he added, the same coin sold for just US$105 000. — Daily Mail.