From a 1996 article by one of America's foremost numismatic researchers:
BACKGROUND: The circumstances surrounding the issuance of the 1913 Liberty Head nickel are not known today. It is believed that Samuel W. Brown, who worked at the Philadelphia Mint and was a numismatist (for example, he attended the 1908 American Numismatic Association convention), was involved. Years later in 1919 he offered to buy some 1913 Liberty Head nickels via an advertisement in The Numismatist. By that time Brown lived in North Tonawanda, New York. After his advertisement appeared, he made known that he had acquired five 1913 Liberty Head nickels, but did not say how he obtained them. The presumption is that he acquired them at the Mint when he worked there, quite possibly via engraver George T Morgan, who produced rarities upon occasion for sale to dealers (in particular, Henry Chapman) and collectors (Cleveland industrialist Ambrose Swasey is an example). The five 1913 Liberty Head nickels were displayed at the 1920 ANA convention.
In early January 1913 it was perfectly legal to make a 1913 Liberty Head nickel at the Mint. As Lee E Hewitt,founder of the Numismatic Scrapbook Magazine and no-nonsense observer of the numismatic scene, said a number of times, under practices then in effect at the Mint, all one had to do was to exchange another date of five-cent piece for a 1913 Liberty Head. Although none had been made in quantity for circulation, in early 1913 the Liberty Head motif was the standard design in use, the "Buffalo" nickel not yet having been either perfected as to design or issued for circulation. The first "experimental" Indian-Buffalo nickels were struck on January 7, 1913, but production for circulation did not take place until after February 15, as there were problems with the design.1 For someone in the Medal Department of the Mint to have struck a few 1913 Liberty Head nickels for cabinet purposes early in January 1913 would have been neither unusual nor illegal. The Liberty Head motif was the official design until it was replaced with the Indian-Buffalo motif, and this did not happen until well into February 1913.
Had not the design problems with the Indian-Buffalo design been straightened out, Liberty Head nickels might have been made in large quantities for circulation in 1913. As it was, the Mint had been told to do nothing with the nickel denomination until the new Indian-Buffalo design was perfected.
Alternatively, the 1913 Liberty Head nickels could have been struck as test pieces in autumn 1912 when dies for thecoinage were being made, and before it was decided not to use the design.
-------------------------------------------
By the way, patterns, i.e. coins struck as trials but later not used, have been struck for over 150 years by the US Mint, some of them unique (only one example struck), and yet they reside in collections around the country. Not once has the mint called them stolen or tried to recover them. This "accusation" sounds like someone read the story of the 1933 $20 gold pieces, and is trying to extrapolate.
At the end of the day, these were NOT stolen from the Philadelphia mint (or the Denver Mint or the San Francisco Mint), and the article clearly lays that out. They were first publicly displayed 98 years ago, and have traded hands many times since. If the U.S. Government has been in no rush to seize them in all that time, what's yours?
= new reply since forum marked as read
