"Basically a coin with a story and a rarity will trump everything else, " Douglas Mudd, curator of the American Numismatic Association Money Museum in Colorado Springs, Colo.

WSJ: Rare 1913 Nickel Auctioned for $3.1 Million

"People gripe and moan about the penny, but they still want to keep it, " says Richard Doty, senior curator of the Numismatic Collection at the National Museum of American History in Washington, DC.

BBC: The US penny: Should it be scrapped?

Although he's on the dollar bill now and on the quarter, "Washington would probably object, " says Douglas Mudd, curator of the museum at the American Numismatic Association in Colorado Springs, Colo.

FORBES

She campaigned against the sale and the chastened museum handed over the collection intact to the American Numismatic Society for a nominal sum.

ECONOMIST: Bluma Trell