1710-D French Colonies 30 Deniers, or Mousquetaire. Piedfort. Billon. Vlack-Unlisted. Breen-281, Ciani-1985, as W-11712. MS-62 (PCGS).

154.0 grains. A true piedfort, struck on an extremely thick planchet that was described in Ford XIII as "white metal" but appears to be the same billon composition as standard strikes of this type. Boldly struck and nicely centered on a somewhat crude, handmade planchet. Abundant luster persists around the legends and design elements, with fresh light silver color intermingled with the deeper gray of mellowed billon. The bottom half of the ideally centered obverse shows a solid frame of denticles, while the periphery of the top half shows file marks, particularly from 12 o'clock to 3 o'clock, and an incompletion flaw (ragged clip) above the central two digits of the date. The reverse is aligned a bit toward 6 o'clock, allowing for the outside of the peripheral denticulation to be seen around 12 o'clock. The bottom reverse periphery shows some significant file marks, as made, most notable around the mintmark at 6 o'clock and right of it. The mintmark remains complete and bold, with S of DENIERS the only letter that is notably affected. The reverse is lightly striated, but most of the planchet is even and attractive. No significant post-striking flaws are seen on either side, just a trivial vertical scratch at the vertex of the right L of the two addorsed letters at central obverse. Syd's notes reflect that three are known. This census in Breen's 1988 Encyclopedia lists three pieces: 1) Ford, 2) Vinchon 12-77:342 and 3) Mike Ringo. The first and the second on that list are the same coin: this one. The last one listed is either in the Lasser Collection at Colonial Williamsburg (purchased from Anthony Terranova in April 2002) or the example in the following lot. The Whitman Encyclopedia listing for W-11712 cites a piedfort in silver, following Vlack, but none in that composition seem to exist.

PCGS# 905865.

From the Sydney F. Martin Collection. Earlier from Jean Vinchon Numismatique's sale of December 1977, lot 342; John J. Ford, Jr. Collection; our (Stack's) sale of the John J. Ford Jr. Collection, Part XIII, January 2006, lot 40; Anthony Terranova Collection; John Agre and Dave Wnuck (Coin Rarities Online), via Mike Wierzba, January 2008.