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Rare 1776 continental dollar coin found inside toffee tin to be auctioned
One dollar will be worth a lot more than that — as a rare 1776 continental dollar coin is set to go to auction next month.
Wotton Auction Rooms told CBS News in an email that one of its clients brought in their collection to be sold, and the haul contained several 18th and 19th-century items. Auctioneers for the Gloucestershire, England-based auction house sorted through the hundreds of pieces that were brought in the toffee tin when they found the coin near the bottom. The coin initially “looked rather dull and boring,” the auction house said.
“It was one of the last objects to be examined. Once work started, we thought that the chances were that it could well be a copy, although everything else within the tin had been genuine and of a very good standard,” Wotton Auction Rooms said.
The auction house sent the coin to the NGC numismatic guarantee company for authentication — and the results confirmed the coin’s authenticity, Wotton Auction Rooms said.
The continental dollar was the first pattern coin struck for the United States. Believed to be designed by Benjamin Franklin, the continental dollar concepts were translated into coins by Elisha Gallaudet, a New York engraver. Gallaudet was thought to have made them at a makeshift private mint in New Jersey, the Smithsonian Museum said, and the coins were issued in silver and pewter.
The silver versions of the coins are extremely rare and only two are known to exist, according to the Professional Coin Grading Service, a rare coin grading company. About 20 pewter continental dollars exist in mint condition, said PCGS. In 2008, a pewter continental dollar was auctioned for the record price of $264,500. In 2015, a silver continental dollar was auctioned off for a record $1,527,500.
The recently discovered coin is set to be auctioned on October 3, said the auction house, and is estimated to go for £20,000 (about $26,360) to £30,000 (about $39,540)
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Trump campaigns in Michigan in first appearance since apparent assassination attempt
Flint, Michigan – Former President Donald Trump returned to the campaign trail Tuesday evening in his first public appearance since the second assassination attempt on his life.
“It’s a dangerous business, however, being president,” Trump said while sitting alongside Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, his former White House press secretary, at the Dort Financial Center in Flint, Michigan. “It’s a little bit dangerous. It’s, you know, they think race car driving is dangerous? No. They think bull riding, that’s pretty scary, right? No. This is a dangerous business, and we have to keep it safe.”
Trump later told the crowd he received a phone call Tuesday from Vice President Kamala Harris, calling it “very, very nice, we appreciate that.”
Speaking earlier Tuesday during a panel interview with the National Association of Black Journalists in Philadelphia, Harris also acknowledged that she had spoken to Trump, saying that she “checked on him to see if he was OK.”
Previously Trump was blaming the rhetoric of Democrats and Harris, telling Fox News digital, “their rhetoric is causing me to be shot at, when I am the one who is going to save the country and they are the ones that are destroying the country — both from the inside and out.”
Joseph Guajardo, a licensed counselor from Battle Creek, Michigan, said at Trump’s town hall in Flint that he hopes the former president will focus on policy, “instead of all the name-calling.”
“I think America is above all of this horrible rhetoric that’s been spoken of about President Trump and the other side, the other side being the Democratic party,” Guajardo said.
On Sunday, members of the former president’s Secret Service detail spotted an AK-47-style rifle poking through the bushes at Trump National Golf Course while Trump was golfing there.
An agent fired at the suspect, later identified as Ryan Routh, who fled the scene. Routh was later apprehended and charged with two firearms offenses. An investigation is underway.
Despite Sunday’s events and the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13, Jim Jones, an Army veteran from Davison, Michigan and Trump supporter, said he’s not worried about his safety at Trump’s campaign events.
“I think when the good Lord wants you, he’ll take you,” Jones said, adding that he thinks “the good Lord has a job for Trump to do.”
Virginia Williamson, a nurse and Trump supporter in Flint, Michigan, said she wasn’t planning to attend Trump’s town hall Tuesday until she heard about the apparent attempt on Trump’s life.
“That’s why my husband and I are here today to show support,” Williamson said.
Trump campaign officials say that they are not planning changes to his schedule after Sunday’s events. A senior campaign official told CBS News that acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe told Trump that it isn’t safe for him to golf without additional security measures. The Biden administration has asked Congress for a surge in funding for the Secret Service to help provide more resources to the agency.
Trump plans to hold a rally in Uniondale, New York, on Wednesday and a rally outdoors in Wilmington, North Carolina, on Saturday.
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