1786 Connecticut Copper. Miller 5.10-L, W-2650. Rarity-5+. Mailed Bust Left. AU-53 (PCGS).

128.0 grains. When priced at $5.00 by B.G. Johnson in 1936, this superb Connecticut copper was called "Uncirculated" and "weakly struck," a combination of words which very only superficially define this finest known survivor of the die marriage. The lustrous, glossy brown obverse is lighter golden-brown in the protected crevices of the legends and devices, areas where the original mint color was last to fade. The reverse is similarly lustrous but a darker olive-brown hue, perhaps a result of storage in a wooden cabinet reverse side down by Dr. Hall or some other early collector. Given the slightly greater wear on the reverse than on the obverse, there may be literal "cabinet friction" at the high points of the reverse of this coin! The surfaces are almost wholly unflawed, with only a thin planchet flaw noted in obverse effigy's epaulet, which has created a small carbon spot in that area. As B.G. Johnson had noted in 1936, the strike is weak, probably the result of a thinned area of the planchet at the obverse effigy's head, face and adjacent field, as well as the corresponding areas of the reverse, chiefly the shield and adjoining designs. The fields are otherwise as struck, the individual luster flow lines clearly visible, as are the finer marks in the die (like the meteor shower of delightful markings in the lower left obverse field) that are the first to disappear with even the briefest period in circulation. Here is a technically fascinating coin that boasts both quality and pedigree, having graced several significant collections since collected over a century ago by Dr. Thomas Hall, whose white ink on edge "5-10 L" attribution is still boldly visible around the 5 o'clock position when viewed from the obverse.

PCGS# 686364.

From the Sydney F. Martin Collection. Earlier ex Dr. Thomas Hall; Virgil Brand; New Netherlands Coin Co.'s 51st Sale, June 1958, lot 77; our (Bowers and Merena's) sale of the Frederick B. Taylor Collection, March 1987, lot 2379; our sale of the Robert M. Martin Collection, November 2019 Baltimore Auction, lot 5111. Obverse plated in Randy Clark's "The Identification and Classification of Connecticut Coppers 1785-1788," p. 241.