Heads or Tails, Newport Agent Wins With Coin

Newport Beach agent Dwight Manley had a lot to juggle--deal-making by cell phone with superstar Michael Jordan, promoting a sunken treasure exhibit featuring an 80-pound gold brick and fielding inquiries about a rare U.S. Mint “mule” coin he bought.

The 34-year-old sports agent and coin dealer made the winning bid at the nation’s biggest coin convention this week in Philadelphia: $29,900 for a mule coin with a George Washington quarter “head” and a Sacajawea dollar “tail.”

“I’ve collected coins since I was 6,” an ecstatic Manley said Thursday. “In the history of the U.S. Mint, they have never had a coin with a double denomination.”

The mule coin was found in May by Frank Wallis of Mountain Home, Ark., who had bought four $25 rolls of Sacajawea dollars, hoping to make a small profit by selling the uncirculated coins for $2 apiece. Manley bought Wallis’ coin Wednesday.

Three more verified mule coins have been discovered and two of them sold--one on EBay in July for $41,395 to an unnamed Los Angeles man.

There also was a report last week that a Michigan woman claimed to have found 15 of the coins in a post office stamp machine. But she disappeared after being offered $150 apiece from a local dealer. That latest discovery, if verified, would significantly drive down the value of the others.

“That makes about 19 of them,” said Jaycine Patchin, who owns a coin shop with her husband in Orange. “That takes [the mule] out of the realm of the super rarity . . . if those 15 are true and they are actually out there.”

Manley is skeptical, however, that the 15 coins exist.

“The [mule] coins were placed into bins at the mint with 25,000 coins, then put in bags of 2,000 coins,” Manley explained. “To have 15 go to one post office, [the odds] would be like a trillion to 1.”

More than 28 billion coins will be minted in the United States this year--one billion of them Sacajawea dollars. Mint officials say that the odds of producing 19 mule error coins is more than 52 million to one.

Collectors around the country are questioning the recent discoveries, suggesting they may have been minted deliberately because they have a similar printing flaw on the quarter side that the coin Wallis found does not have.

Ellen Gano, a representative for the U.S. mint, said Thursday that an investigation into the error has shown no evidence of wrongdoing by employees, but that more such mule coins may, indeed, exist.

Even if there are more such coins, it doesn’t bother Manley. He said the coin will be going into a vault in Orange County, where his 2-year-old daughter could play with it on occasion. For the time being, anyway.

“My wife said she wanted to wear it on a chain around her neck, but I told her she couldn’t do that until a few thousand more are found,” Manley joked.

Besides representing such NBA stars as Dennis Rodman and Karl Malone, Manley has made a career of coins. He got his first job at 15, at Fullerton Coins earning $5 an hour. Now, as managing partner of the Newport Beach-based California Gold Group, he recently bought a cache of gold from an 1857 shipwreck for $100 million. The booty included an 80-pound gold bar--the largest ever found.

Eventually, Manley said he’ll make the coin available to museums. For coin collectors, “It’s like the first person to go to the moon,” he said. “It’s just exciting.”