Rare penny worth a lot of coin

RANDY BOSWELL

POSTMEDIA NEWS

This Canadian 1936 coin is expected to

 sell at an auction next month in the U.S. '

 - HERITAGE AUCTION GALLERIES

  OTTAWA — Just weeks after the Cana­dian penny was pulled out of circula­tion, the single most famous one-cent coin ever produced in this country — an "exceedingly rare" and valuable 1936 "dot cent" stolen from a U.S. collector in 1964, then mysteriously returned to him — is set to be sold at an American auc­tion next month for at least $250,000.

  The penny was one of just three known to have been created by the Royal Canadian Mint at a time when the nation's coin-makers were scram­bling to prevent a shortage of proper­ly stamped coppers.

  The crisis loomed at the end of a tumultuous year for coin engravers, during which George V died and his son, Edward VIII, became king for only a brief reign before abdicating in favour of his younger brother, George VI.

  Between the time Edward VIII gave up the throne in December 1936 (to mar­ry American divorcee Wallis Simpson) and George VI was formally crowned in May 1937, nervous Canadian offi­cials — lacking a profile portrait of the unexpected new king to stamp on the country's coinage — prepared for a stopgap re-minting of the old George V design.

  To distinguish any new batch of coins that might have been required from the earlier production runs of 1936 George V pennies, a tiny dot was added by mint technicians in the space beneath the "1936" date of the posthumous proto­types, believed to have been made in early 1937.