 Undated Wood's Hibernia Farthing. N.18. Pattern. Britannia seated reverse. Bath metal. Uncirculated. 90.5 gns. Some corrosion spots. Second finest known. Pale greenish yellow in color on the obverse, more golden brown on the reverse. Some corrosion spots on each side, fairly typical for Bath metal. Very sharply struck on each side with more detail showing than on any other, with Britannia's features clear and bold to the naked eye on the back and just about every single one of George's hair strands on the front sharp and individually separated. Finer than all but one other known specimen. Rare: the cataloguer knows of only 11 of these: this; Brand II:951 (Choice Extremely Fine); Roper:129, the Nelson-Boyd duplicate ex NN 59th:1058, later in EAN2 (Fine); private collection (Very Fine); Stack's 2001 Americana sale, lots 48 (Choice Extremely Fine) and 49 (Very Fine, said there ex Nelson Collection); Norweb:3489 (Very Good to Fine); Garrett:1264 (Very Fine to Extremely Fine); Spence:703 ex Stack's, June 1973:791 (About Uncirculated); Heritage 2001 ANA:5028 (Uncirculated, probably the finest); Norweb (a second, ex Seaby in 1956, untraced). The reverse type is anepigraphic. Given its late date and metallic composition, it may properly belong with Wood's Rosa Americana series more than his Hibernias.
Ex Fred Baldwin on June 6, 1967.
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