 1652 Massachusetts Bay Colony. Pine Tree Shilling. Small Planchet. N.18, Cr.23-L, W.60. R-6+. 71.7 gns. Extremely Fine. The Noe Plate Coin. The Wurtzbach Plate Coin. A superior specimen and one of the finest seen, in the same class as Hain's and far superior to Norweb's. Both sides of this piece are pale steel gray in color. The front is a little off center to the lower right leaving a lip of extra metal showing at the left. The letters in the legend are fully on the flan, however, and the tree in the center is sharp if a little soft on its highest points. On the reverse the central denomination and date and the peripheral legend around are bold while the outer beaded border is nearly complete. This side is slightly off center also, to the lower left, leaving a little extra metal at the upper right. Wurtzbach described this piece on his collector's ticket as ''Extremely Fine. Rare variety. Few known.''
Very rare: in fact, R-6+ may not do the rating justice. Very few N.18's are known and even fewer have been sold publicly. There was only one in the 1991 ANS COAC exhibition, the Hain Family coin, for example. That one was once Parmelee's and while it was sharper than the present specimen it had an edge split. The best Norweb could do was a Fine. The fact that there was no N.18 in any of the NN trio of sales (48th, 59th and 60th) shows Boyd did not have a duplicate of the variety to sell. There was no N.18 in Stearns, Garrett, Picker, Roper, Oechsner, or even the 1970 MHS sales.
Ex Waldo C. Newcomer, Charles E. Clapp, Carl Wurtzbach, T. James Clarke, F.C.C. Boyd Collections.
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