A 1945-S Wheat cent.
Harshly cleaned.
Worth a few cents.
I found it in a coffee can of change when I was eight. Ten years later I built SLVR because of it, a coin marketplace with no commission and no buyer's premium.
Who's behind it
At fourteen I was behind the counter on weekends, sorting cull Peace dollars, learning to read Greysheet, studying wear patterns after school.
Shows and shops were the classroom after that. VAMs, Snow varieties, margins, liquidity, and the gap between what a price guide says and what someone will actually pay for the coin in front of them.
“Keep it up, young man. In twenty years you'll be one of the few left standing.”
A dealer three tables down · 19th annual FUN Show, Orlando
He meant it as a compliment. I heard an alarm.
Fees were never part of collecting. They just decide who gets to start.
So at eighteen I built the marketplace I wished existed. No commission, no buyer's premium, collector to collector, with escrow protecting both sides of every deal.
In fifty years I want to be showing my grandchildren a hobby that's still worth joining.
That cent is still worth a few cents.
I wouldn't take anything for it.