1787 Connecticut Copper. Miller 34-k.3, W-4055. Rarity-7. Draped Bust Left. AU-58 (PCGS).

171.6 grains. Light golden brown and almost consistently so aside from a couple of small, more deeply patinated spots on both sides. The surfaces are slightly granular and both sides are peppered with tiny natural flan flaws, but thankfully none are large enough to be individually distracting. Rather boldly struck, evenly so, and nicely centered on both sides such that only the point of the pole and the bases of the date digits touch the border. This is a very rare variety, with just eight coins documented in the Robert Martin notebook. Until this turned up in our January 2013 sale without any prior provenance, the finest known was the Jim Gouge Collection coin, called "choice Very Fine," and that was the finest by a long shot as all others are either very low grade or seriously problematic, generally AG to VG, and/or heavily corroded, scratched, or similar. Making this variety more challenging is the fact that two of the few known are in the ANS Collection, one from the Barnsley Collection, the other from the Frederick Canfield holdings. When this appeared, it seems to have excited the most serious collectors, as the quality far exceeds all others known. It realized just under $56,000 in 2013. As rare as the variety is, it will come as no surprise that many important collections did not include it. It was missing from the Taylor, Perkins, Ford, SLT, Newman, Twin Leaf, Robert Martin, Partrick and Rothschild Collections.

PCGS# 918134. NGC ID: 2B2X.

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From the Sydney F. Martin Collection. Earlier from our sale of January 2013, lot 10697.