1787 Connecticut Copper. Miller 33.43-hh.2, W-4010. Rarity-5. Draped Bust Left, ETLIR. MS-62 BN (PCGS).

A beautiful coin with lustrous light brown surfaces seemingly glowing with generous outlines of retained mint red around the devices and through the legends. Some light natural planchet roughness is noted on the obverse, the two largest flaws being a shallow linear lamination left of the face, and a small rim void to the lower right of the bust. The reverse, rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise, has an identical appearance with similar shallow lamination flaws scattered about. On this side the most serious of them is harder to see, being nestled against the drapery at the right. Nicely centered and evenly struck on the obverse, while the reverse is centered a little high, allowing for full expression of the date and a full border. The noted natural flaws should make this easy to trace, but no such luck! It seems to have been a relatively new discovery as Robert Martin's notebook has no mention of it, and it is entirely too nice and too identifiable to have been simply overlooked. Syd Martin noted this on his own envelope as "Finest Known?" with good reason considering the superb quality. It is probably the second or third finest. The nicest in terms of overall preservation might be the off-center Norweb coin. That was in the Donald Partrick Collection, graded MS-63 by NGC. It appeared again in the August 2022 Heritage sale, graded a point higher, and was blatantly cataloged as a different coin, though the off-center strike makes it virtually impossible to miss as the Norweb coin. Though it graded high, it does not seem to have much, if any, original red remaining. The only other truly nice one was also in Partrick and had come from Hall, Brand and Oechsner. That was graded MS-62 by NGC. It was well-centered, and had vestiges of faded red, though not as much as seen on this coin. It would be interesting to compare them side-by-side, as their relative ranking is uncertain otherwise. But this must be CC#2 or #3, at worst.

PCGS# 687360. NGC ID: 2B36.

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From the Sydney F. Martin Collection. Earlier ex Christopher B. Young, March 2004.