A gold coin donated to a northwestern Indiana church is so rare it's helping pay for construction of a new church building. Pastor Ben Lamb Says Grace Point Church was founded in 2009 with a bare bones budget and operated out of an elementary school. As the Church grew, the congregation came together and raised enough money to purchase a building. However, with general maintenance and renovations figured into the cost, the church was still short $300,000.
Soon after this revelation Lamb says a woman who's a member of Grace Point Church in Valparaiso said to him, "I have a coin that might help."
At first, Lamb says he wasn't aware of how valuable the $20 gold piece coin was until he contacted a few auction houses.
"That's when we knew we had something," said Lamb. "So we did a lot of research and made a lot of phone calls and the rest is history."
Sarah Miller of Heritage Auctions says the $20 gold piece is one of only 10 known surviving 1866 Liberty Head double eagles stamped with "In God we trust." It could fetch more than $300,000 when it's sold at auction April 27.
Pastor Ben Lamb says Heritage Auctions wired the church $150,000 for advance payment toward the coin's final auction price and that's allowed construction to begin already on the new building.
