Undated (ca. 1652-1674) St. Patrick Farthing. Martin 1d.1-Ba.11, W-11520. Rarity-6+. Silver. Nothing Below King. AU-55+ (PCGS).

115.5 grains. A wonderful and simply lovely piece, described in 2005 by Michael Hodder as "the finest seen by the cataloguer, nicer than the best of Norweb's four." The obverse and reverse are toned in deep coin silver-gray, with traces of iridescent blue and very pale champagne toning on each side. The center of the obverse is sharp. King David's hand is clear and all the harp strings are individually outlined. The letters in the encircling legend are bold and the crown above actually shows some inner detail. There is a nearly full border of denticles on this side, those on the lower right being off the flan. Central reverse is not quite as sharp, with some softness on St. Patrick's figure. The church to his right and the snakes and other creatures to his left are bold, the encircling legend is complete save for a very softly struck L in PLEBS. There is nearly a full border of denticles on this side, those at the lower left being slightly off the planchet. The fields are actually bright and somewhat reflective, not quite semi-prooflike, but of a quality higher than seen on most other specimens. There is a small nick just below the harp on the obverse and a few other lighter marks elsewhere, but none are really important in light of the overall outstanding quality. Martin 1d.1-Ba.11 is the most available of the 15 St. Patrick farthing die varieties known in silver, but still rare in absolute sense with just a few dozen examples extant. Martin estimates that no more than 100 silver St. Patrick farthings exist in total. The finest from these dies is probably the impressive Ted Craige example graded PCGS AU-58+ that we sold in November 2012 for $80,500. The present coin is not quite as sharp but is still a remarkably high quality piece and would almost certainly be included in a Condition Census were one to be compiled. It is marginally finer than Syd Martin's two PCGS AU-55 examples: one, ex LaSarre, realized $28,800 in our Summer 2022 Global Showcase Auction; the other, ex Eliasberg, is offered below. An outstanding silver St. Patrick farthing, always a classy and desirable colonial type coin.

PCGS# 902860. NGC ID: 2U3S.

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From the Sydney F. Martin Collection. Earlier ex New Netherlands Coin Company; our (Stack's) sale of the John J. Ford, Jr. Collection, Part VII, January 2005, lot 3; Lawrence R. Stack Collection, November 2006. The obverse and reverse plate coin for these dies in silver in the 2018 Martin reference on St. Patrick coinage, pp. 109 and 222, respectively. The obverse is also featured at upper right on the front cover of that book.