1787 Connecticut Copper. Miller 33.21-EE, W-3700. Rarity-7. Draped Bust Left. AU-50 (PCGS).
136.7 grains. Handsome chocolate brown with faint steely mellowing on the high points. Thoroughly glossy surfaces with no granularity, though both sides are peppered with a combination of minor planchet flaws and tiny planchet texture nicks that simply didn't strike out. In fact, a better strike may have eliminated nearly every imperfection that might catch the eye here. As it is, the strike is uneven, with a large rather flat area on the obverse toward 4 o'clock, while the strike alignment on this side is shifted heavily in the same direction. The reverse is beautifully centered, but the unevenness in the strike has impacted this side, too, with the uppermost details fading into the rough flan. That said, in terms of preservation, the grade is quite high. This coin has suffered no abuse, and precious little handling of any kind. This is yet another coin unknown to earlier researchers, this time including Crosby, Hall and Miller. Again, full clarity on this variety did not arrive until Stack's published J.M. Richardson's article on Connecticut varieties in the 1946 Numismatic Review. The variety had been noticed as new (but not properly assessed) by C.F. Luther, in 1928, and it was published in the March 1928 edition of The Numismatist. Richardson bought the Luther coins and sorted the matter out. None accounted for in the Robert Martin notebooks are nearly as nice as this. All are lower grade and described as "matte" or porous. One of them, now in an NGC VG-10 holder, was in the Partrick Collection and is the only piece in the Heritage archives. It features a large obverse flaw, which unmistakably identifies it as the coin published in by us in 1946! This was a key detail missed in the Partrick presentation, as it was the Discovery Piece from 1928. It went from J.M. Richardson to the John Carter Brown Library, to Frederick Taylor and then to Donald Partrick. Three coins appear in our online archives. One is the 1975 EAC sale coin that went to Norman Peters, a granular, unevenly struck Fine-15. The second is the secondary Taylor coin, another very granular Fine, that passed through the collections of Ed Sarrafian, Peter Scherff, Anderson-Gleckler, and Twin Leaf. The third is a slightly uneven and better centered VF that appeared in our November 2021 sale. That is likely the second finest, but this coin must be finest, seemingly by a very comfortable margin.
PCGS# 686375.
To view supplemental information and all items from the Sydney F. Martin Collection, click here.
From the Sydney F. Martin Collection. Earlier ex Christopher B. Young, March 2004.

Estimate: $6500