July 6, 2009: "Finest Colonial"

Author:
J. Agre

Concept:
The first time we laid eyes on this coin we knew that it would eventually appear in one of our ads with a caption that described exactly what is; the single finest colonial coin struck in the 18th century that we have ever seen, or know about.

So why the distinction about the "18th century"? Because most of the other mega-grade colonials we’ve seen are restrikes, and include the "1783" Washington Draped Bust Restrikes that were actually struck in the 1860’s (i.e. the 19th century), as proofs, using more advanced minting technology, made for collectors and never intended to circulate.

But this piece is a whole other animal, actually struck in the 1760’s, made to serve as money, seldom found in any mint state grade, but here seen in frankly astonishing condition.

Captions that didn’t make the cut:
The only alternative was to use a different qualifier in the place of "Quite possibly", since we did not want to say that this IS the finest 18th century colonial and then have someone email us about an even more astonishing coin.

Even though we think that is very, very unlikely.