(1659) MD 4P Lord Baltimore MS(PCGS#32)

The March 2013 Baltimore Auction

拍卖行

Stack's Bowers

批号

2

等级

AU53

价格

439,965

详细说明

Undated (1659) Lord Baltimore Fourpence, or Groat. Hodder 1-A, W-1010. Large Bust. AU-53 (PCGS). 21.6 grains. The finest normally-struck Lord Baltimore groat certified by PCGS, the sole finer example being the AU-58 (PCGS) specimen with a bold rotated double strike, ex: Wayte Raymond. Deeply toned with olive toning at the peripheries, verging to amber before reaching the silver gray obverse fields; the reverse is a more even iridescent dark gray. A beautiful piece, with good remaining luster and strong eye appeal. Some planchet texture is visible on the obverse portrait, which is rarely fully struck up on this variety. Aside from some old hairlines under the toning, there are no problems noted under magnified scrutiny. This coin's presence in the Craige Collection is puzzling; the rest of Boyd's Lord Baltimore pieces (the finest denarium, a sixpence, and a shilling) ended up in the Ford Collection and were sold by us in the Ford II sale of 2004. No groat was included. Ford had no good reason to not keep this one with the rest of the Boyd material, as the quality ranks this among the finest known and he did not have a duplicate. Andrew Pollock's excellent survey of 17th century colonial coin appearances found just 10 discrete specimens, led by Parmelee's Unc and the Unc from our (Stack's) June 1973 sale. Roper had a nice one, perhaps not quite as high grade as this one but better struck. Garrett's was graded just EF at the time but would be seen as finer now. This is the nicest one to have been offered in the last dozen years; the finer AU-58 (PCGS) specimen is enough of a misstrike to be incomparable. As the rarest of the three silver Lord Baltimore denominations, the groat always finds itself on plenty of want lists among even the most advanced collectors.