1652 Pine Tree Shilling. Small Planchet. Noe-15, Salmon 1-A, W-830. Rarity-5. VF-35 (PCGS). CAC.
73.45 grains. 25.0 x 25.0 mm. A weighty and well made specimen of this scarce variety in an extremely fine state of preservation. Ideal light silver gray surfaces show a dusting of toning, with some attractive iridescence visible under scrutiny and hints of frost in protected areas. Magnified examination reveals no significant flaws whatsoever. The obverse is aligned to 6 o'clock, with a notable raised rim at the top of that side marking the edge of the die, a hallmark of collarless screw press production. The tops of IN M are off the planchet at the bottom of the obverse; the reverse, better centered, shows no affected outer lettering. Not far removed from the quality of the Noe plate coin, offered as lot 106 in our (Stack's) Ford XII sale. The only clearly superior piece, as noted in that description, is the Lasser coin, now impounded at Colonial Williamsburg. The reverse die is cracked, subtly above N of AN, more significantly at the nearby DO; in later states, this failure expands and takes some of the legend with it, as on Ford:107. This variety was missing from the Partrick collection. Norweb's was holed and plugged, Picker's (earlier from Ellsworth and Garrett, privately) was not as nice, the Crosby-Brand-Wurtzbach-Boyd duplicate in NN60 was less complete but showed a very similar raised rim atop the obverse, and the two in Stearns were probably very nice but not as complete as this one. Interestingly, one of Stearns' coins was also pedigreed to Crosby but is not the same as the Crosby-Brand-Wurtzbach coin that appeared in NN60. Hain's were both in the VF range. This piece is easy to count among the top several finest of the variety, and may rank in the top two or three.
PCGS# 24. NGC ID: 2ARZ.
From our (Stack's) sale of the Reed Hawn Collection of Massachusetts Silver, May 1998, lot 32; our sale of the Henry P. Kendall Foundation Collection, March 2015 Baltimore Auction, lot 2396.