A $5 coin from the early days of the United States sold for $3 million at Heritage Auctions on Wednesday. Its seller? The owner of the Miami Marlins.
The 1798 Small Eagle $5 coin is one of the rarest and most valuable regular-issue U.S. coins in the collecting world.
Unlike the stereotypical “grail” coin, it is not an error or mistake. Instead, it was simply minted in extremely low quantities and saw its population slowly dwindle down over the years. By 2015, examples of the rare BD-1 variety sold at Heritage numbered just seven, with two held by the National Numismatic Collection and the Smithsonian.
Much like the rich history of numismatics, which can trace its origins to Ancient Rome, the fascination and value of this coin, identified as hailing from the D. Brent Pogue Collection, is nothing new.
By 1865, one specimen sold for $125 ($2,420 in 2025).
The D. Brent Pogue coin was first discovered in an April 1935 issue of The Numismatist, according to Heritage. It then sold a few more times at auction until reaching the collection of Egyptian monarch King Farouk.
After he was deposed in the early 1950s, the coin was sold by Sotheby’s. Soon after it was sold again, fetching $6,000 in 1954 ($70,400 in 2025) and entering the collection of a wealthy Texas oilman, John Murrell.
He sold it in 1979, where it would remain in the private collection of Mac and Brent Pogue until its most recent sale in 2015 for a record $1.175 million to Bruce Sherman, chairman and principal owner of the Marlins.
When Heritage announced it would be selling Sherman's historic collection, Heritage president Greg Rohan called it a “once-in-a-lifetime offering” and said his collection “stands as one of the most remarkable achievements in numismatics.”
PCGS’ Ron Guth wrote of the Small Eagle $5: “[T]he opportunity to purchase an example of this coin is exceedingly rare, and it would be difficult to pry one onto the market because we simply don't know where they are.”
Will Stern is a reporter and editor for cllct.