1727 Rosa Americana Pattern Halfpenny. Martin 1-A, W1366. Rarity-8. GEORGIUS II / ROSA: SINE: SPINA. EF Details--Plugged (PCGS).

72.7 grains. An exceedingly rare item with only two examples confirmed, the other being a white metal piece in the British Museum. A third is rumored based on a listing in Taxay of an example "ex Bowers and Ruddy" but it has not been seen. This piece is struck in copper, crudely holed and plugged at the back of George's neck and with some additional damage to the right of the plug. Otherwise chocolate-brown surfaces with strong, lightly worn detail. Planchet cracks are seen at 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock relative to the obverse, as struck. Features the same ROSA SINE SPINA reverse design as on the preceding coins, but here smaller in format and with a 1727 date in exergue. As this is the date of George II's coronation, the issue likely has something to do with that occasion. A desirable piece for its reverse design, long collected alongside the Rosa Americana series, at least as far back as Waldo Newcomer (1867-1934) who owned this very example.

PCGS# 905774.

From the Sydney F. Martin Collection. Earlier ex Waldo Newcomer, via Burdette G. Johnson; F.C.C. Boyd; our (Stack's) sale of the John J. Ford, Jr. Collection, Part IX, May 2005, lot 191; our (Stack's) sale of the John P. Lorenzo Collection, January 2008 Americana Sale, lot 5591. Plated in the Whitman Encyclopedia of Colonial and Early American Coins, p. 63. Plated in the Martin reference "The Rosa Americana Coinage of William Wood," p. 328, 329.