The couple walked into a small room at the Hilton Garden Inn this week, carrying one old coin that ended up being worth thousands of dollars.

Josh Cunningham of the Illinois-based International Coin Collectors Association, said on Tuesday, the second day of the association's six-day stay in Newport News this week, two couples brought in extremely rare coins.

The collectors association is buying old coins, to later make a profit by selling to private collectors. The association travels all over the United States searching for old coins.

The first rare coin was a 1652 Pine Tree Shilling, which was probably among the first coins to be minted in the colonies, in Massachusetts, according to the Legendary Coins and Currency web site.

"They had no clue that it was that valuable," Cunningham said of the couple that brought in the Pine Tree Shilling. "I had never seen one that was real. I had seen lots of fake ones."

The shilling is worth $6,000 or more, Cunningham said on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, another couple showed up at the Hilton Garden Inn with a 1785 "bar copper" that was minted in the newly-formed United States. The "bars" on the tails side of the coin represent the 13 states. That coin is worth about $1,000, Cunningham said.

Tom writes:

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