The price of history is half a million dollars, and you can buy it next week in Denver.

A coin and money convention, including an auction for rare currency, will hit Denver's Colorado Convention Center Aug. 1-5.

The World's Fair of Money, sponsored by the Colorado Springs-based American Numismatic association, will host more than $1 billion of valuable currency.

The general public can view the rare coins and bills, including examples of currency with some sort of mistake, known as "funny money," and learn about the history of coins through educational seminars.

The auction will feature a 1792 Birch cent, the first penny manufactured in the U.S. It contains 264 grains of copper because the government wanted it to be worth exactly 1/100 of a dollar - but it made it about the size of a half dollar. The coins were never circulated.

Heritage Auctions, the organization selling the piece for an English coin collector who found it, sold another Birch cent a few years ago for nearly $2.6 million. David Stone, a U.S. coin cataloger for Heritage Auctions, said he expects this one to go for only $500,000 because it is not in as good of condition.

Stone said it is unknown how many of these first pennies were manufactured, but about a dozen are known to exist today. The one at the Denver auction was last seen in 1890 but recently turned up in England with a coin dealer.

"We thought we knew where it was before, but we were wrong," Stone said. "This one was hidden for all those years."

Other notable coins at the auction will be experimental pennies made from plastic, glass or zinc-covered steel - prototypes to show to Congress for consideration during World War II when they were short on copper due to the manufacturing of shell casings and other war necessities. One of these experimental coins sold for $70,000 last year, Stone said.

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Show me the money - $1 billion of rare coins in Denver next week for convention(http://www.denverpost.com/2017/07/27/1-billion-rare-coins-denver-convention/)