| Description: |
16.8 grains. 16.5 mm. A high grade specimen with an unbeatable provenance. Deep slate gray
with hints of light silver gray around letters where lustre was last to fade. A tough of
old encrustation remains beneath the tree. A well-detailed little jumble, nicely centered
and lacking only the top of M of MASATHVSETS among both obverse and reverse legends. A
tiny planchet crack at 9:00, called a "cleft on edge" by the Chapman brothers in
1904, serves as a fine identifying link to the extensive provenance. No significant flaws
are seen from the post-striking era. Significantly sharper and more appealing than either
Ford specimen; Ford's primary piece, plated by Noe and Wurtzbach, sold for $9,200. That
catalogue quoted Breen as saying "All specimens examined are dogs, due doubtless to
weak striking and weakly cut dies." This one does not bark nor wag its reverse,
rather representing this type in fine style. Most advanced colonial type coin cabinets
would be improved by its acquisition.In the introduction of the 1904 Mills catalogue, the
49-year-old consignor is described as "one of the younger collectors." Little
has changed in the intervening century.From S.H. and Henry Chapman's sale of the Whitman
Collection, August 1893, Lot 113; S.H. and Henry Chapman's sale of the John G. Mills,
Esq., April 1904, Lot 25; Bowers and Ruddy Galleries' sale of the Garrett Collection, Part
III, October 1908, Lot 1211. The original Garrett lot ticket accompanies this lot.
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