In 2007, Jack Daws fabricated 10 pennies, each copper-plated, 18-Karat gold, heavier than the usual and slightly smaller. His gallery offered nine for sale for $1,000 each. The 10th Daws dropped into circulation at the Los Angeles International Airport.
What are the chances he’d ever hear from that 10th penny again?
Daws’ counterfeit, fresh from his gallery:
This week, a woman in NYC named Jessica Reed called him to say she’d found it, noticed its difference and tracked back to the original stories about the piece. The penny lost and found has more value for Daws than the pennies that went straight to collectors’ homes, but what attracted him to pennies in the first place was their lack of value.
“The lowly penny,” he said in 2007. “People don’t bend over to pick it
up.”
The counterfeit Daws’ Reed found:
Molly says
Each time I do not pick up a penny I think of reading “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” where the family nailed a coffee can to the closet floor and slowly filled it with pennies that to them were so precious.
Herb Levy says
Wow. I hope Jack Daws began showing in Seattle after we moved to FW. His work is great! & so’s his name.