1787 Fugio 1C New Haven Restrike, Silver MS(PCGS#915)

May 2019 Baltimore U.S. Coins Auction

拍卖行

Stack's Bowers

批号

3278

等级

MS62

价格

38,140

详细说明

Elusive "New Haven Restrike" Fugio in Silver "1787" (ca. 1860). Fugio Copper. "New Haven Restrike." Newman 104-FF, W-17570. Rarity-5. Silver. MS-62 (PCGS). This is a lovely example of a scarce metallic composition for the "New Haven Restrike" Fugio copper. Warmly patinated in deep golden-gray, bolder pewter patina encircles the obverse periphery. The surfaces are satiny in texture, sharply struck, and seemingly smooth enough to warrant consideration at the Choice Mint State grade level. By the late 1850s, numismatics in the United States had advanced to the point where contemporary collectors avidly sought examples of many types of colonial and early Federal era coins for inclusion in their cabinets. According to numismatic lore, in 1858 C. Wyllys Betts discovered three sets of 1787-dated Fugio copper dies on the site of the Broome & Platt store in New Haven, Connecticut. Betts' discovery was supposedly made while rendering services to coin dealer Horatio N. Rust who, circa 1860, had Fugio coppers struck in copper alloy, silver and gold from these dies. These coins have come to be known as the "New Haven Restrikes." Unfortunately, modern numismatic scholarship has proved that very little of the foregoing account is actually true. What is definitely true is that the increased popularity of coin collecting in the United States of the 1850s made it profitable to produce and sell reproductions of the historically significant Fugio coppers. The firm primarily responsible, however, appears to be the Scovill Manufacturing Company of Waterbury, Connecticut, which used newly created dies to strike these coins. Horatio Rust still seems to have been involved, but only as a distributor of these pieces or, perhaps, the person who commissioned Scovill Manufacturing Company to create the dies and/or coins. Neither from New Haven nor restrikes, the "New Haven Restrikes" differ in detail from original Fugio coppers, particularly on the reverse where the rings are narrow instead of wide. Most examples of this type are struck in copper, bronze or brass, although rarer silver and gold impressions are also known. The present lot features one of the scarce silver impressions of the Newman 104-FF "New Haven Restrike" variety, one of perhaps just 50 pieces originally produced in this precious metal (per Horatio Rust, as noted in Q. David Bowers' 2009 Whitman Encyclopedia of Colonial and Early American Coins). PCGS Population: 8; 6 finer (MS-63+ finest). PCGS# 915. NGC ID: 2B8U. Click here for certification details from PCGS.