Parrino, a prominent coin dealer from Kansas City, Missouri, had been underbidder at Auction '89 when the Dexter specimen of the 1804 silver dollar brought $990,000-- an all-time auction record for a single U.S. coin. He was underbidder again when Reed Hawn's 1913 Liberty Head nickel changed hands at auction in October 1993 for $962,500.

On May 21, when another 1913 Liberty nickel--the one that belonged to Louis E. Eliasberg Sr.--came up for sale at another glittering auction in New York City, Parrino left the underbidding to others: He snared the famous coin with a floor bid of $1,350,000. With the 10-percent buyer's fee tacked on, his total outlay came to $1,485,000, or just under $1.5 million.

"I had always promised myself that I would be the first person to pay a million dollars for a coin at auction," Parrino told COINage in an exclusive interview. "On the last 1913 nickel, had I bid one more time, the people who bought that coin would have been the first to pay a million. So I purposely did not bid. I did the same thing on the 1804 Dexter dollar--one more bid and it would have been over a million, and I didn't want that to happen."

He concluded before the Eliasberg Sale, held May 20-22 in New York City, that Eliasberg's specimen of the 1913 nickel--widely acclaimed as the finest-known example of this highly publicized rarity--would in all likelihood bring a million dollars or more. And he entered the auction room at the St. Moritz Hotel determined to be its new owner, even if he had to pay TWO million dollars for the privilege.

"I figured this way: Eliasberg's is the most famous collection, and this is the most famous coin--gold, silver or copper--in the entire sale, so this was the one to do it on," he explained. "I didn't want the price to have an asterisk--bringing a million dollars only with the buyer's fee added. That's why I shouted out a million-dollar bid. That way, there could be no question about its status as the first million-dollar coin.

"At the same time, I didn't want to overpay for the coin just to say that I was the first to pay a million. I wish that the bidding had stopped there, but it didn't. But I was pretty determined to own the coin; I would have gone up to two million. And truthfully, I was quite surprised that I didn't have to pay a lot more for it."

Parrino reported that shortly after the sale, he turned down not one but two different offers from people who would have paid him $2 million for the 1913 nickel.

"This," he said, "is simply reconfirmation of the thing I've been preaching for years: When you buy the right coins, the irreplaceable coins, they just keep rising in value.

"People are terrified to talk about coins as an investment, but I can tell you that over 40 years, coins have been very good to me. And it's not buying and selling, but buying of the RIGHT coin, the irreplaceable coin, and being patient. It virtually leaves people who need and want those coins with nowhere else to go. They may not like the price, but they don't really have much choice.

"It's just a great coin," he said of his prized new acquisition. "It's the most famous coin in the world, and it's the finest-known example--and the finest known is always worth multiples of every other piece."

Parrino had received less favorable publicity from portions of the news media three months earlier when he figured in the aborted sale of another famous and controversial rarity--the 1933 Saint-Gaudens double eagle. He and British coin dealer Stephen C. Fenton were arrested for their roles in arranging for sale of the coin, which the U.S. government claimed had been stolen from the Mint (a claim based on its contention that 1933 double eagles were never officially issued and therefore are illegal to own).

Ironically, the price reportedly being asked for the double eagle was $1.5 million--almost exactly the sum that Parrino later paid for the 1913 nickel.

Parrino won vindication when the government later dropped the criminal charges, and he is hopeful that civil litigation now being pursued by Uncle Sam--aimed at preventing sale or private ownership of this or any other '33 double eagle--will end in similar victory for the defense.

"In my opinion, the '33 Saint never WAS illegal to own," he declared. "Never. This whole thing was absolutely a joke. There are so many coins in numismatics with more questionable pasts--the '13 Liberty nickel I just bought being the prime example. We KNOW it was stolen; there isn't any question about that. And yet, they leave coins like that alone and go after the '33 Saint."

Obviously, Parrino hopes that federal agents won't start going after 1913 Liberty Head nickels, now that he owns one. And he's confident that the government will continue its benign neglect of these and other such coins.

"In my opinion, the Secret Service and the Treasury Department--if they had this to do over again--wouldn't even touch the 1933 Saint with a 10-foot pole," he remarked. "I think they've opened up a can of worms and they wish they could close it."

According to Parrino, there were only three regular- issue U.S. coins that he had never owned prior to the Eliasberg Sale, and the 1913 "V" nickel was one of them.

"When the last '13 nickel (the Reed Hawn specimen) came up," he said, "I wanted it, but I wasn't as anxious as this time, because my tastes have grown to the point that I don't want to just own a '13 nickel, I want to own the BEST '13 nickel. I own the best '94-S Barber dime, the best '27-D Saint, the best Chain cent, the best Wreath cent--I own the best of just about all the rarities. So when the Eliasberg Sale came up, this was just something I wanted to do for myself."

He said he bought the nickel "for stock," and he's clearly in no hurry to dispose of it.

"I really have no plans for selling it," he said. "It's in my box of 20, and that's where it will stay for right now."

He has no immediate plans to put the coin on display, but he said he would be agreeable to exhibiting it--and possibly other rarities--at one or more major coin shows.

"I want people to see them," he declared. "I'm not so much looking for publicity; it's more a case of giving our hobby good exposure. When I lay out some of these coins at shows, I get fathers coming up with their sons--and when those kids hold a million-dollar coin in their hand, it's a moment they'll never forget. A lot of people never really get to see these things. That's why I've dragged them to shows and paid horrendous insurance costs--to help promote interest in numismatics."

Parrino believes the Eliasberg Sale sends a very positive message to the marketplace.

"Eliasberg showed us what I have been saying for 25 years," he said. "I have pounded it in over and over and over. Great coins bring great prices in any kind of market. It doesn't matter how bad the market is--every time the right coin comes up, it brings a world-record price.

"This is not a particularly strong market--and yet, every major coin brought multiples ... multiples ... of its previous high. Take the 1796 half cent. No half cent has ever brought $100,000 at auction, and I don't even think any copper coin has ever brought $200,000 at auction. And yet, here comes this coin, which is famous to numismatists but not famous at all to the general public, and it brings half a million dollars. It's the same thing with the 1873-CC no- arrows dime--half a million plus.

"This is wonderful news for the market and the hobby alike."

Following the auction, some were hailing Parrino as a hero for injecting such excitement into the sale--and into the marketplace as a whole.

"I certainly don't look upon myself as being a hero at all," he said. "I was shocked more than anyone when people came up for autographs afterward; I've never seen that happen at any sale or virtually anything else in my life.

"If I've helped the coin business, if I've helped the collector and if I've helped coin prices, then I'm very proud of that. I'm proud to say that I've done something good for the coin business."