1652 Pine Tree Shilling. Small Planchet. Noe-28, Salmon 10-D, W-920. Rarity-6+. EF-40 (PCGS).
71.5 grains. Dark charcoal-gray overall with a few areas of lighter sandy-russet evident on both sides. Full tree, denomination and date in centers, roots a trifle soft. Obverse legend soft at the bottom, reverse legend soft in many places, as expected for this Noe number. Short, straight clip at 1 o'clock relative to the obverse, and we also note two areas of striations and lower left and right reverse that appear to be mint made. Reverse sharply clashed, with ghost images of some obverse letters visible. This clashing accounts for the aforementioned softness in the reverse legend. The die state is later than that of the Norweb coin, which is not as heavily clashed with the reverse break not as advanced as seen here. This distinctive variety is an underappreciated rarity, with fewer than 10 examples confirmed. At least two are impounded, including the high grade double struck specimen in the ANS and Joe Lasser's coin at Colonial Williamsburg. The Picker-Hawn-Partrick-Sydney F. Martin coin offered here was rather boldly called "the finest known" in Heritage's Partrick sale, although your cataloger (JLA) feels that laurel that might better be offered to the Roper coin or, in pure technical terms, to the Kendall-Robert M. Martin specimen. The Stearns sale lacked one; apparently the Stearns piece was acquired privately by T. James Clarke in 1937, ended up being Boyd's duplicate, and was sold in NN60. There was a pleasing, if low grade piece in our (Stack's) January 2010 Americana Sale; the Ted L. Craige Collection brought a holed and plugged VF to market through our January 2013 Americana Sale. Norweb's was offered again in Hain. The Ford piece was a very decent VF, sharper in some areas than seen here, but softer elsewhere. The Noe-28 Pine Tree is certainly a challenging variety in terms of both rarity and quality of the extant examples, and the collector would have a difficult time obtaining a markedly nicer one than this.
PCGS# 914822. NGC ID: 2ARZ.
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From the Sydney F. Martin Collection. Earlier ex our (Stack's) sale of the Richard Picker Collection, October 1984, lot 35; our (Stack's) sale of the Reed Hawn Collection of Massachusetts Silver, May 1998, lot 40; Jon Hanson; Donald Groves Partrick; Heritage's sale of the Donald Groves Partrick Collection, January 2015 FUN Signature Auction, lot 5601.

Estimate: $11000