Walter Husak, a Burbank, Calif., aerospace-parts manufacturer, began collecting coins at 13 when his grandparents gave him some old pennies for doing chores. Last week, Husak’s hobby paid off when he auctioned 301 of his rare cents for $10.7 million—the biggest sale ever of a penny collection. Two examples, one from 1793 and the other from 1794, fetched $632,5900 each. “It was a fabulous night,” said Greg Rohan, president of Heritage Auction Galleries. “Every major coin collector of American cents was either there in person, bidding online, or on the telephone.”
The Swiss company Rinspeed has built the world’s first truly functional underwater car. The craft is a pet project of Rinspeed’s CEO, Frank Rinderknecht, who had been consumed with the idea ever since he saw Roger Moore drive a submersible Lotus Esprit in the 1977 James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me. Called the “sQuba” (the capital “Q” is a nod to Bond’s gadget expert), the new electric-powered auto can do 77 mph on land, 3 mph on the surface of water, and about 1.8 mph at a depth of 30 feet. It will make its official debut at the Geneva Auto Show next month.
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