The Burglar Who Studied Spinoza (4 page)

The object Abel Crowe held gently but securely between the thumb and index finger of his left hand was a metallic disc just under seven-eighths of an inch in diameter—or just over two centimeters, if you’re into metrics. It was, in short, the size and shape of a nickel, the sort of nickel that’s the price of the good cigar this country is purported to need. It was the color of a nickel, too, although its frosted features and mirrorlike field were a ways removed from anything you’d be likely to have in your pocket.

By and large, though, it looked like a nickel. And well it might, for that was precisely what it was.

All it lacked was Thomas Jefferson’s head on the one side and his house on the other. The side Abel looked at first showed a large V within a wreath open at the top, the word
Cents
inscribed directly beneath the V. Circling the wreath were the issuing nation’s name and motto—
United States of America
above,
E Pluribus Unum
below.

Abel flicked me a glance from beneath upraised eyebrows, then deftly turned the coin in his fingers. Its obverse depicted a woman’s head facing left, her coronet inscribed
Liberty.
Thirteen stars circled Miss Liberty, and beneath her head was the date.

“Gross Gott!”
said Abel Crowe. And then he closed his eyes and said another long sentence that I didn’t
understand, possibly in German, possibly in some other language.

Carolyn looked at me, her expression quizzical. “Is that good or bad?” she wanted to know.

I told her I wasn’t sure.

H
e didn’t say anything else until he’d looked long and hard at both sides of the coin through his jeweler’s loupe. Then he wrapped the coin in tissue paper, returned it to the Plexiglas box and tucked the box into the kraft envelope, which he placed on the table beside him. With an effort he heaved himself out of his chair to fetch another slab of nutritionist’s nightmare and a fresh cup of coffee
mil schlag.
He sat down, ate for a while, set his plate down half finished, sipped the coffee through the thick whipped cream, and glared at me.

“Well?” he demanded. “Is it genuine?”

“I just steal them,” I said. “I don’t authenticate them. I suppose I could have dropped in on Walter Breen or Don Taxay for a professional opinion, but I figured it was late.”

His glance moved to Carolyn. “You know about this coin?”

“He never tells me anything.”

“A Liberty Head Nickel,” he said. “Nickel five-cent pieces were first issued in this country in 1866. The original design showed a shield. In 1883 the government switched to this design, although the initial run of coins lacked the word
cents
on the reverse. There was thus some confusion as to the coin’s denomination, and it was cleverly compounded by those who filed the edge of the coin to simulate the milling on a gold coin, then plated it lightly with gold and passed it as a five-dollar gold piece.”

He paused and had himself a sip of coffee, used a napkin to blot a thin line of whipped cream from his upper lip. “The coin was issued without interruption through 1912,” he continued. “In 1913 it was replaced by the Buffalo Nickel. The Mint had problems with that issue, too, in the first year. Originally the mound on which the bison stands was in excessive relief and the coins would not stack properly. This was corrected, but the dates of these coins tended to wear off prematurely. It was a poor design.

“But I am telling you more than you would care to know. The last Liberty Head Nickels, or V-Nickels, as they are sometimes called, were struck in Philadelphia and Denver and San Francisco in 1912.” He paused again, breathed in, breathed out. “The speci
men you were so kind as to bring me tonight,” he said, “is dated 1913.”

“That must make it special,” Carolyn said.

“You might say that. Five specimens of the 1913 V-Nickel are known to exist. They are clearly a product of the U.S. Mint, although the Mint has always denied having produced them.

“It is fairly clear what must have happened. Dies for a 1913 V-Nickel must have been prepared before the decision to switch to the buffalo design was finalized. Possibly a few pieces were struck as the trials; alternately, an enterprising employee may have produced these trial pieces on his own initiative. In any event, five specimens left the Mint by the back door.”

He sighed, removed one of his slippers, massaged his arch. “I carry too much weight,” he said. “It is alleged to endanger the heart. My heart makes no objection but my feet protest incessantly.

“But no matter. Let us return to the year 1913. At the time, a gentleman named Samuel Brown worked at the Mint in Philadelphia. He left shortly thereafter and next emerged in North Tonawanda, a suburb of Buffalo, where he placed advertisements seeking to buy 1913 Liberty Head Nickels—which of course no one had heard of at the time. He subsequently announced that he had managed to purchase five such nickels, and those are the only five which were ever to see the light of day. Perhaps you can guess how he happened to get them.”

“He walked out of the Mint with them,” I said, “and the ads were his way of explaining his ownership of the coins.”

Abel nodded. “And his way of publicizing them in the bargain. You are familiar with the name of E. H. R. Green? Colonel Edward Green? His mother was Hetty Green, the notorious witch of Wall Street, and when her son came into his money he was able to indulge his eccentricities, one of which was numismatics. He did not wish merely one specimen of a rarity; he wanted as many as he could lay hands on. Accordingly, he bought all five of Samuel Brown’s 1913 V-Nickels.

“They remained in his possession until his death, and I trust he enjoyed owning them. When he died his holdings were dispersed, and a dealer named Johnson wound up with all five of the nickels. I believe he lived in the Midwest, St. Louis or perhaps Kansas City.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said.

“Probably not,” he agreed. “In any event, Mr. Johnson sold them off one at a time to individual collectors. While he was doing this, a dealer in Fort Worth by the name of B. Max Mehl was busy making the 1913 V-Nickel the most famous rare coin of the century simply by offering to buy it. He placed advertisements everywhere offering fifty dollars for the coin, with the implication that one might come across it in one’s pocket change. He did so in order to attract customers for a rare coin catalog he was peddling, and I don’t doubt he
sold a great many catalogs, but in the course of it he assured the future of the 1913 nickel. No American coin ever received so much publicity. Americans who knew nothing else about coins knew a 1913 V-Nickel was valuable. Virtually everyone knew this.”

I did. I remembered the ads he was talking about. They were still running when I was a boy, and I was one of the guppies who sent for the book. None of us found 1913 V-Nickels in our pockets, since they weren’t there to be found, but many of us began collecting coins and grew up to swell the ranks of the numismatic fraternity. Others of us grew up to be thieves, seeking our fortunes in other men’s pocket change, as it were.

“There’s no logical explanation for the coin’s value,” Abel went on. “At best it’s a trial piece, at worst an unauthorized fantasy item. As such it should be worth a few thousand dollars at most. The Mint struck pattern nickels in 1881 and 1882 in a variety of metals and with a variety of designs. Some are as rare or rarer than the 1913 nickel, yet you can buy them for a few hundred dollars. In 1882 a pattern coin was struck identical in design to the V-Nickel, and in the same metal, but with that year’s date. It’s quite rare, and if anything it ought to be more desirable than the 1913 coin, if only because its existence is legitimate. Yet a couple of thousand dollars will buy it, assuming you can locate an example for sale.”

Carolyn’s face was showing a lot of excitement about now, and I could understand why. If another coin was worth a couple of thousand, and that made it strictly minor-league compared to what we’d come up with, then we were in good shape. But she still didn’t know just how good that shape was. She was waiting for him to tell her.

He made her wait. He reached for his plate, finished his pastry, switched plate for cup, drank coffee. Carolyn got herself more Armagnac, drank some of it, watched him sip his coffee, drank the rest of the Armagnac, made her hands into fists, planted them on her hips, and said, “Aw, come on, Abel. What’s it worth?”

“I don’t know.”

“Huh?”

“No one knows. Maybe you should put it in a parking meter. Bernard, why did you bring me this?”

“Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time, Abel. If you want I’ll take it home with me.”

“And do what with it?”

“I don’t have a car so I won’t put it in a parking meter. Maybe I’ll punch a hole in it and Carolyn can wear it around her neck.”

“I almost wish you would do that.”

“Or maybe somebody else’ll buy it.”

“Who? To whom would you offer it? No one will deal more equitably with you than I, Bernard.”

“That’s why I brought it to you in the first place, Abel.”

“Yes, yes, of course.” He sighed, fished out a handkerchief, wiped his high forehead. “The
verdammte
coin has agitated me. What is it worth? Who
knows
what the thing is worth? Five specimens exist. As I recall, four are in museum collections, only one in private hands. I remember seeing a 1913 V-Nickel just once in my life. It was perhaps fifteen years ago. A gentleman named J. V. McDermott owned it and he liked to exhibit his treasure. He put it on display at coin shows whenever asked, and the rest of the time he was apt to carry it around in his pocket and show it to people. Few collectors get the pleasure out of their possession that Mr. McDermott derived from his nickel.

“When the coin passed into another pair of hands it brought fifty thousand dollars, as I recall. There have been sales since. In 1976, I believe it was, a 1913 nickel changed hands for a hundred and thirty thousand. I don’t remember if it was the McDermott coin or not. It might have been. More recently there was a private sale reported with an announced figure of two hundred thousand.”

Carolyn put her glass to her lips, tipped it up. She didn’t seem to notice that there was nothing in it. Her eyes were on Abel, and they were as wide as I had ever seen them.

He sighed. “What do you want for this coin, Bernard?”

“Wealth beyond the dreams of avarice.”

“A felicitous phrase. Your own?”

“Samuel Johnson said it first.”

“I thought it had a classic ring to it. Spinoza called avarice ‘nothing but a species of madness, although not enumerated among diseases.’ Are you mad enough yourself to have a price in mind?”

“No.”

“It’s so difficult to put a value on the damned thing. When they sold the John Work Garrett collection, a Brasher doubloon brought seven hundred twenty-five thousand. What might this coin bring at auction? Half a million? It’s possible. It’s not sane, not by any means, but it’s possible nevertheless.”

Carolyn, glassy-eyed, went for more Armagnac. “But you can’t consign this piece for auction sale,” he continued, “and neither can I. Where did it come from?”

I hesitated, but only for a moment. “A man named Colcannon owned it,” I said, “until a couple of hours ago.”

“H. R Colcannon? I know of him, of course, but I didn’t know he bought the 1913 nickel. When did he acquire it?”

“No idea.”

“What else did you get from him?”

“Two earrings and a watch. There was nothing else
in his safe except legal papers and stock certificates, and I left them as I found them.”

“There were no other coins?”

“None.”

“But—” He frowned. “The V-Nickel,” he said. “Didn’t he have it in a frame or a custom lucite holder or something of the sort?”

“It was just as I gave it to you. Tissue paper and a hinged box in a two-by-two coinvelope.”

“Remarkable.”

“I thought so.”

“Simply remarkable. He must have just purchased it. You found it in a safe in his home? He must keep his holdings in a bank vault. Is this the McDermott coin, do you know? Or did one of the museums sell it? Museums don’t hold on to things forever, you know. They don’t just buy. They sell things off now and then, although they prefer to call it deaccessioning, which is a particularly choice example of newspeak, don’t you think? Where did Herbert Colcannon get this coin?”

“Abel, I didn’t even know he had it until I found it in his safe.”

“Yes, of course.” He reached for the coin, opened the envelope, unwrapped a half million dollars’ worth of nickel. With the loupe in one eye and the other squeezed shut in a squint, he said, “I don’t think it’s counterfeit. Counterfeits exist, you know. One takes a nickel from 1903, say, or 1910 or ’11 or ’12, grinds off
the inappropriate digit and solders on a replacement removed from another coin. But there would be visible evidence of such tampering on a coin in proof condition, and I see no such evidence here. Besides, it would cost you several hundred dollars for a proof common-date V-Nickel to practice on. I’m almost certain it’s genuine. An X-ray would help, or the counsel of an expert numismatist.”

He sighed gently. “At a more favorable hour I could establish the coin’s bona fides without leaving this building. But at this time of night let us merely assume the coin is genuine. To whom could I sell it? And for what price? It would have to go to a collector who would be willing to own it anonymously, one who could accept the fact that open resale would be forever impossible. Art collectors of this stripe abound; the pleasure they take in their paintings seems to be heightened by their illegitimate provenance. But coin collectors respond less to the aesthetic beauty of an object and more to the prestige and profit that accompany it. Who would buy this piece? Oh, there are collectors who’d be glad to have it, but which of them might I approach and what might I ask?”

I got some more coffee. I started to pour a little Armagnac into it to give it a bit more authority, then told myself the Armagnac was entirely too good to be so dealt with. And then I reminded myself that I had just lifted a half-million-dollar coin, so why was I holding
back on some thirty-bucks-a-bottle French brandy? I laced my coffee with it and took a sip, and it warmed me clear down to my toes.

“You have three choices,” Abel said.

“Oh?”

“One: You can take the coin home with you and enjoy the secret ownership of an object more valuable than you are ever likely to own again. This coin is worth at least a quarter of a million, perhaps twice that, possibly even more. And I have been holding it in my hand. Extraordinary, is it not? For a few hours’ work, you can have the pleasure of holding it in your own hands whenever you want.”

“What are my other choices?”

“Two: You can sell it to me tonight. I’ll give you cash, unrecorded fifties and hundreds. You’ll leave here with the money in your pocket.”

“How much, Abel?”

“Fifteen thousand dollars.”

“For a coin worth half a million.”

He let that pass. “Three: You can leave the coin with me. I will sell it for what I can and I will give you half of whatever I receive. I’ll take my time, but I’ll certainly endeavor to move the coin as quickly as possible. Perhaps I’ll find a customer. Perhaps the
verdammte
thing’s insured by a carrier with a policy of repurchasing stolen goods. It’s a delicate business, dealing with those companies. You can’t always trust
them. If it was a recent acquisition, Colcannon may not even have insured it yet. Perhaps he never insures his coins, perhaps he regards his safe-deposit box as insurance enough, and intended placing this coin there after he’d had an appropriate case made for it.”