At the auction, which was held in Long Beach on Friday night, a rare collection of pennies from Walter Husak accounted $10.7 million.

 

The man from Van Nuys shared his entire collection of 301 "large cents," that have the size of quarters, with buyers who were ready to increase their bids to unprecedented heights. Mr. Husak was a little sad to watch his pennies sell after he collected them for many years, investing millions of dollars.

 

Officials that were behind the organization of the auction named it a "once-in-a-lifetime event" for numismatic enthusiasts.

 

According to Greg Rohan, president of Heritage Auction Galleries, a collectibles auctioneer that held the event, the world's leading collectors had been aware of the sale since the summer of 2007. There were about 200 collectors, who hurried to participate in the auction at the Long Beach Convention Center. The auction room was able to house several collectors, while hundreds of other collectors participated in bidding on-line and by phone. The organizers of the auction hoped to sell the rare pennies in two hours, however, the auction lasted much longer as collectors started offering bids ten times the coins' expected value.

 

After four hours of bidding only 13 pennies remained unsold from a collection of 301 coins, said Greg Rohan.

 

Auction officials stated that the huge demand for the rare pennies occurred because Mr. Husak had been keeping these coins for a long time in his collection.

 

"These coins had been off the market for decades. People had been waiting . . . for the chance to buy some of them. It was a feeding frenzy," said the president of Heritage Auction Galleries.

 

According to Mr. Rohan, the collection of Mr. Husak had a huge success not only due to the rarity of the coins but also due to their quality.

"Many of these coins are in as good a shape as the day they came off the press at the mint," said Greg Rohan.

 

Ever since Mr. Husak was a boy he collected Buffalo nickels and Indian head pennies. At the age of 13 we has already been wheeling and dealing. When he founded a company that manufactures aerospace parts, Mr. Husak resumed in 1980's his hobby of collecting coins. At this time he managed to sell some of his coins.

Coin collectors highly rate the early pennies, especially when these coins mellow with age. Some of the most interesting examples are pennies from 1794. According to Al Boka, 58, who is a friend of Mr. Husak, these pennies are fragile and during the time when these coins were minted, people used handmade dies, which were frequently changed, thus creating dozens of various coin designs. Mr. Boka acquired six of Mr. Husak's coins that are dated 1794. The prices he paid ranged from $30,000 to $58,000 for a penny.

 

Mr. Husak owns 2 homes in Santa Ynez Valley and one in Van Nuys. Due to the fact that he needed to pay his real estate debt, he was very nervous and really hoped to gather enough money from the auction.