Believed to be unique, a cricket held in a Professional Coin Grading Service (PCGS) sample slab will cross the block in an online auction closing at the end of October.
While no estimate is listed, the top bid – of 52 total bids – was $2,600 US as of Sept. 15. It’s being sold by GreatCollections, based in Irvine, Calif., with bids accepted through the firm’s website.
“And so the legend goes, back in the 1990s, there was a cricket disturbing the coin graders at PCGS, until one of them caught it and put it in a slab,” reads the online auction listing.
Later, at a “high-level meeting of graders,” it was decided the slabbed cricket would be given to error expert Fred Weinberg, of Encino, Calif., who has since decided to sell it.
The unique oddity has been featured in countless articles, forum posts and in David Schwager’s book, Sample Slabs. It has also been displayed at major U.S. coin shows, including the recent World’s Fair of Money in Rosemont, Ill.
Schwager told CoinWeek the PCGS-certified cricket is “the most unusual item I have seen or heard in a holder of any grading service.” He lists it as “PCGS-Cricket-9-1” in Sample Slabs.
The sale closes on Oct. 31 at 4:05 p.m. (PT).