A penny saved for200 years can earn $2.5 million.

Beverly Hills rare coin dealer Kevin Lipton purchased a rare coin he said is an important piece of American history. He told the Daily News hebought the 1792 Birch Cent penny for $2,585,000 at auction Thursday.

A pretty penny of a sum sure, but Lipton insists he got a good deal and expected the rare coin to sell for far more.

"I wasn't buying it in the heat of an auction," he said Monday from his store, Kevin Lipton Rare Coins. "I was buying it forvalue."

Thepenny is named after its designer Robert Birch and was a prototype for the nation's first coins, he said.

"This coin is one of the greatest, I'd say, top 10 American coins in existence. It's great from a rarity standpoint and a historicalstandpoint," he said. "It's the birth of our coinage."

A 22-year-old Lipton was actually at the auction in 1981 when the coin was last sold to New York collector Donald G. Patrick for $200,000.

But Lipton said he wasn't interested in the item at the time.

"I didn't understand coins like that back then," he said. "Now I understand the greatest American coins are the ones thatrepresent where we started."

To read the complete article, see:
Beverly Hills coin dealer buys1792 Birch penny for $2.5 million (www.nydailynews.com/news/national/coin-collector-buys-1792-birch-penny-2-5-million-article-1.2074980)

Alan V. Weinberg writes:

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
PARTRICK 1792 CHALLENGE RESULTS (www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v18n02a07.html)