"Olsen" 1913 liberty nickel sold for $3.7 million "Olsen" 1913 liberty nickel sold for $3.7 million at Heritage Auctions Florida United Numismatists (FUN) Auction, at the Orange County Convention Center Thursday.
on November 10, 1897, and died in South Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on September 29, 1966. He was employed as a steeplejack and later operated a vending machine business and a coin business. Mac, as he was known to all, was described as a person as memorable as his nickel, which he often carried loose in his pocket. His wife, Elizabeth ("Betts") consigned the coin to James Kelly and Paramount after his death, and she died in Lubbock, Texas, later that same year on December 18, 1967.
Bruce Morelan is a Pacific Northwest businessman and a partner in Legend Numismatics. He began collecting coins at the age of six when his grandmother gave him three coins that she saved in her teapot for many decades--a Trade dollar, a half dime and a three cent nickel. Morelan began his collection by forming the finest set of Trade dollars in memory of this event. After buying and selling ultra rarities such as the Eliasberg 1884 and 1885 Trade dollars, the Olsen and Eliasberg 1913 Liberty nickels, Morelan went on to form the finest set of seated dollars ever completed and remains active in numismatics today.
Will W. Neil [Olsen] never actually owned a 1913 Liberty nickel, but the Olsen specimen was included in the June 1947 catalog of his collection.
Emery May (Holden) Norweb [Norweb] was born on November 30, 1895 in Salt Lake City, Utah, and died on March 27, 1984, in Cleveland, Ohio. She was the granddaughter of Liberty Emery Holden, who was the founder of the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper, still published today. She was the daughter of Albert Fairchild Holden, who gave her an interest in numismatics. She married Raymond Henry Norweb, Sr., in Paris in 1917, where she drove an ambulance and worked in French hospitals. The couple's first child, R. Henry Norweb, Jr., was born in August 1918 in a cellar during an air raid. Mrs. Norweb was president of the Cleveland Museum of Art from 1962 to 1971. She was a member of the American Numismatic Association for almost 70 years, joining in 1914. Much of the Norweb Collection was sold in the late 1980s by Bowers and Merena, but Ambassador and Mrs. Norweb made several donations, including their 1913 Liberty nickel that was presented to the Smithsonian in 1978. Although billed as the Norweb Collection and usually considered the coin collection of Ambassador Norweb, the true collector was Mrs. Norweb, whose interest was encouraged by her father. She holds an ANA membership record of 70 years.
Fred E. Olsen [Olsen] was born in England in 1891 and finished his technical training at the University of Toronto. He later lived in Alton, Illinois, where he was employed as technical director at the Western Cartridge Company. Known as an explosives authority, Olsen developed a new method of making smokeless gunpowder, gaining him national fame. Olsen died in 1986 at his home in Guilford, Connecticut.
George Owen Walton [Walton] was born on May 15, 1907, in Rocky Mount, Virginia,
