 1652 Massachusetts Bay Colony. Pine Tree Shilling. Small Planchet. N.20, Cr.18-L, W.54. R-7. 71.6 gns. About Uncirculated. The Noe Plate Coin. The Wurtzbach Plate Coin. A magnificent specimen and the finest seen by the cataloguer. Better than Hain's VF ex Stearns, Norweb's VF, the Boyd duplicate VF offered in the next lot, and a Choice Fine in a New England collection. The ANS coin ex Wurtzbach exhibited in 1991 does not compare to this, either. Both sides are toned in a nice deep coin silver gray, the shade a little darker on the reverse. The obverse is a little off center to the top with the tops of THVSE running off the flan on this side. The tree is sharp, however, and the inner beaded border is complete. On the reverse the piece is well centered with the outer beaded border almost complete, all letters in the legend legible save for those at the bottom which are beginning to crumble from the advanced state of the die.
What appears to be a plug on the obverse at about 6:00 is not, as it is opposite the most severely broken part of the reverse die and is clearly a striking anomaly. Carl Wurtzbach described this piece on his collector's ticket as ''Unc. Gem. Additional obv. break border to W in New.'' Very rare: although exactly how so is still unsettled. Suffice it to say for these purposes that the specimens enumerated earlier are the only ones seen by the cataloguer, who notes none in Garrett, Picker, Roper, Oechsner, the 1970 MHS sale or the NN trio (48th, 59th and 60th).
Ex DeWitt S. Smith, Virgil Brand, Carl Wurtzbach, T. James Clarke, F.C.C. Boyd Collections.
| |
|
