A small silver coin concerning the measurement of a nickel, struck in Boston in 1652, set a world report on Monday, November 18, 2024, in an public sale carried out by Stack’s Bowers Galleries. Promoting for $2,520,000 (with all included charges), the piece surpassed the earlier world-record value of $646,250 for an American coin struck earlier than the American Revolution by practically $2 million. The 1652 New England threepence additionally set a report for any non-gold U.S. coin struck earlier than the founding of the United States Mint. Weighing simply 1.1 grams, its silver worth is $1.03 primarily based on in the present day’s market.
Struck inside weeks of the institution of the primary mint to be opened sooner or later United States, the New England threepence is the one instance identified outdoors of a museum. A holed specimen has been within the assortment of the Massachusetts Historic Society for 120 years. Since that point, no particular person collector has had the chance to personal an instance. Right this moment, a number of collectors pursued this once-in-several-lifetimes alternative.
Stack’s Bowers Galleries Director of Numismatic Americana John Kraljevich, cataloger of the piece, famous after the sale that he was “very pleasantly shocked” on the value, which was greater than 3 times in-house presale estimates.
All coinage from the Boston Mint is scarce. Silver threepences, sixpences, and shillings have been struck in 4 totally different designs between 1652 and 1682, with probably the most well-known and quite a few of those being the Pine Tree shillings, struck over the past decade of the mint’s operation. The straightforward cash struck in 1652 are all extraordinarily uncommon and have only a tiny NE for “New England” and the denomination in pence (rendered as III, VI, or XII). Of the NE cash of 1652, the threepence is by far the rarest.
This piece was found in an previous cupboard in Amsterdam round 2016 and belied identification for a number of years earlier than the proprietor determined to totally analysis his discover. The coin is believed to have come from the Quincy Household of Boston, a political dynasty that included Abigail Adams, whose husband John was ambassador to the Netherlands within the 1770s and ’80s.
Two examples of the (1652) New England shilling have been additionally bought within the public sale, bringing $60,000 and $192,000. Amongst different highlights, a silver Libertas Americana medal, struck in Paris in 1783 at Benjamin Franklin’s order as a commemorative of American independence, introduced $144,000.
The sale of this New England threepence marks the 58th time Stack’s Bowers Galleries has bought a coin at public sale for $1 million or extra. Extra $1+ million collectibles bought by the agency embrace the 1936 Nobel Peace Prize medal and a number of other uncommon items of paper cash.
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