Abel flicked me a glance from beneath upraised eyebrows, then deftly turned the coin in his fingers. Its obverse depicted a woman's head facing left, her coronet inscribed Liberty . Thirteen stars circled Miss Liberty, and beneath her head was the date.
"Gross Gott!" said Abel Crowe. And then he closed his eyes and said another long sentence that I didn't understand, possibly in German, possibly in some other language.
Carolyn looked at me, her expression quizzical. "Is that good or bad?" she wanted to know.
I told her I wasn't sure.
CHAPTER Four
He didn't say anything else until he'd looked long and hard at both sides of the coin through his jeweler's loupe. Then he wrapped the coin in tissue paper, returned it to the Plexiglas box and tucked the box into the kraft envelope, which he placed on the table beside him. With an effort he heaved himself out of his chair to fetch another slab of nutritionist's nightmare and a fresh cup of coffee mil schlag. He sat down, ate for a while, set his plate down half finished, sipped the coffee through the thick whipped cream, and glared at me.
"Well?" he demanded. "Is it genuine?"
"I just steal them," I said. "I don't authenticate them. I suppose I could have dropped in on Walter Breen or Don Taxay for a professional opinion, but I figured it was late."
His glance moved to Carolyn. "You know about this coin?"
"He never tells me anything."
"A Liberty Head Nickel," he said. "Nickel five-cent pieces were first issued in this country in 1866. The original design showed a shield. In 1883 the government switched to this design, although the initial run of coins lacked the word cents on the reverse. There was thus some confusion as to the coin's denomination, and it was cleverly compounded by those who filed the edge of the coin to simulate the milling on a gold coin, then plated it lightly with gold and passed it as a five-dollar gold piece."