Story Archive

Cha Ching Ding Dong

Michael Johnson met Shane Mele, 40, via a mutual friend and helped Mele out. A few years later, Mele contacted Johnson saying his wallet had been stolen, and Johnson gave him a place to stay for three months. While staying in Johnson’s West Palm Beach, Fla., office, Mele allegedly stole Johnson’s coin collection — over 100,000 coins in some 80 boxes — valued at around $350,000. According to police, Mele confessed to stealing the coins. He sold some of them for $2,330, and the rest — including 33 presidential coins valued at $1,000 each — he fed into CoinStar machines at a supermarket, collecting the value of the coins based on size as a store credit, minus an 11.9 percent redemption fee. If the presidential coins were all put into the machines, he received $29.30 in store credit. (MS/Palm Beach Post) ...He also got 3 cents/pound for Johnson’s 1930s mint-condition comic book collection at a recycling center.