1785 Vermont Copper. Landscape. Struck RR-5, Bressett-unlisted, W-2270. Rarity-7+. VERMONTIS, Obverse Sunface at Left. VF-20 (PCGS).
122.6 grains, dies oriented at 225 degrees. The struck variant of the RR-5 is among the great rarities of the Vermont series, with five known specimens, one of which has been permanently impounded in the Vermont Historical Society Collection since 1902. Medium golden brown, the color quite even across the coin except for the rounded glossiness and lighter tan hue of the all-seeing eye on the reverse. Legends and devices are essentially complete and rendered on a lovely, round flan, the plow and obverse sun face a bit soft as are the letters (REPUBLI)CA on obverse and (Q)UA(RTA) on reverse, apparently due to a slight wave in the planchet that affects those letters on both sides. A small depression at obverse dead center is where the high relief reverse "all-seeing eye" or sunface literally sucked metal away from the obverse during striking. Though similar in general outlines to the 1785-1786 Landscape type issues, the RR-5 is believed to be a contemporary circulating counterfeit and has several stylistic and design differences. The genuine issues present the higher mountains on the left, with the sunface and lower mountains on the right, with a handful of small trees decorating the tops of the mountains. The RR-5 Green Mountain scene is essentially reversed, with the sunface and lower mountains on the left, and the high mountains on the right, with the slopes of the mountains teaming with many tiny trees. The struck RR-5 is also distinctive for the placement of its obverse legends, with the date placed under an exergual line below the plow rather than at the rim around 6 o'clock, and the legends start around 6 o'clock and go clockwise along most of the circumference, whereas the legends on the genuine Landscapes start around 7 o'clock to accommodate the placement of the date. The reverse is quite different too, the all-seeing eye of the genuine coins turned into what appears to us to be a sunface with two eyes; the left eye is only visible in outline, with vestiges of its brow, while the right eye is well-formed and visible, with a well-formed brow. Contours are seen of what must have been a nose and mouth, but the sunface was the highest relief part of the design, so wore the most and fastest of all parts of the devices. The word STELLA flanks the 12 o'clock position on the RR-5, while the word QUARTA fills that space on the genuine 1785-dated Landscape coppers. Crosby mentions a struck RR-5 in his 1875 Early Coins of America, commenting that there appear to be cast counterfeits of the type as well, which are now known as the cast RR-5s like the one in the following lot. The struck RR-5 was listed by Ryder (1926), Richardson (1947), Carlotto (1998), and Bowers/Whitman (2020); Bressett (1976) pictures a cast RR-5 but does not explicitly list any RR-5, while Breen (1988) muddles the struck and cast versions into one listing without noting the differences in design between the two. Carlotto is hesitant about both struck and cast RR-5s because they are not from "known dies, punches, or makers," but that is the very definition of a contemporary counterfeit, which are rife in the Connecticut and New Jersey series, where they are avidly collected without hesitation. The casts appear to be made from an earlier iteration or state of the obverse die, before certain modifications were made in it, such as the addition of the thick exergual line above the date. The ridgeline and slopes of the mountains were also reinforced with thick lines, one of which has been previously interpreted as a die crack (see the very good articles about RR-5 by William T. Anton, Jr. and by Jack Howes/Mark Vitunic), and the rows of tiny trees added to the slopes. These additional elements-the contours of the mountains, the trees, and the exergual line-appear to have been cut more deeply into the die and stand out as such on surviving specimens. Anton in his article also interpreted the elements of the "all-seeing eye" on the casts to be a trio of dots or stars, but we believe the casts to have been made from a high grade coin on which the two eyes and nose/mouth were still clear, and which ended up appearing as blobs on the crude casts that Anton interpreted to be dots or stars, and which Howes/Vitunic call . So, it is entirely possible that one day another pre-modification version of the struck RR-5 will be found. And if the struck RR-5 is a contemporary circulating counterfeit made during the mid/late 1780s active circulating life of Vermont coppers, and the cast RR-5s are made from an earlier state of the currently known struck RR-5s, then it stands to reason that the cast RR-5s were also made in the 1780s. In Anton's 1988 Rare Coin Review article "The Legendary 1785 Ryder-5 Vermont Coppers," he considered the Norweb coin to be the finest known, but that was before the discovery and sale of the piece in the March 1990 Harmer-Rooke auction, which is much sharper but on a striated flan with a consequent loss of much of QUARTA on the reverse. Though known since the 19th century, the struck RR-5 has been offered at auction only four times, all in the last 70 years: the 1953 Bullowa Sale, the 1970 Harmer-Rooke Sale, the 1987 Norweb Sale, and the 2015 Partrick Sale, the last two being offerings of this coin. In 1987, this coin brought $37,400; by comparison, an 1894-S Barber dime brought $70,400 in 1988, the same example of which brought $1,320,000 in 2019, showing how much value was put on the struck RR-5 decades ago. With one example impounded in the Vermont Historical Society, and the other known specimens mostly tightly held, this may be your only chance for a while to acquire this fascinating Vermont copper rarity.
PCGS# 915140.
To view supplemental information and all items from the Sydney F. Martin Collection, click here.
From the Sydney F. Martin Collection. Earlier from our (Bowers and Merena's) sale of the Norweb Collection, Part I, October 1987, lot 1266; Heritage's sale of the Donald Groves Partrick Collection, January 2015, lot 5741.

Estimate: $75000