1840 Token HT-205 Brass Bergen Iron Works MS(PCGS#77135)

August 2019 ANA U.S. Coins Auction Rosemont, IL

拍卖行

Stack's Bowers

批号

318

等级

MS65

价格

5,506

详细说明

New Jersey--Lakewood. 1840 Bergen Iron Works. HT-205, Low-142, W-NJ-180-10b. Rarity-2. Brass. Plain Edge. 20.9 mm. MS-65 (PCGS). Medal alignment. Warm brassy gold with flashes of pale reddish-rose around the peripheries and outlining the eagle. Surfaces are lovely with an exceptionally smooth, hard, glossy appearance for the issue. Sharply struck everywhere save the centers, as expected. The relief of the eagle's breast was too high directly opposite the clasped hands, so neither of these design features received adequate metal from the planchet to fill out when these were struck. Remarkable condition for an example of this HT number. These were meant to circulate through the company's store and consequently almost all known are worn and lack most or all of their original luster. Finer even than the Ford specimen, which we described in 2004 as one of the finest known. We could make an even stronger claim for the present piece. This token was part of the special display of highlights from the Dice-Hicks Collection during the 2008 Long Beach, Baltimore and Phoenix Mid-Winter A.N.A. numismatic conventions. The Bergen Iron Works, located in what is now Lakewood Township, was an operation similar to that of the Howell Works. Regionally abundant bog iron ore was smelted using charcoal as fuel and oyster shells as flux. Later in the decade that this 1840 token was issued, new refining processes and the use of anthracite coal from Pennsylvania rendered this process obsolete. The mill continued operations into the 1850s. The factory was located at about four miles from the north end of Barnegat Bay where the railroad crossed the Metedeconk River. Provenance: Ex Kimball Collection; our (Bowers and Merena's, in conjunction with Presidential Coin and Antique Company, Inc.) sale of the Julian Leidman Collection, April 1986, lot 4565; our (Stack's) sale of the Collections of James E. Dice & M. Lamar Hicks, July 2008, lot 3172; Stephen L. Tanenbaum estate, January 2013. Collector tag with attribution and provenance notes included. Click here for certification details from PCGS.