1670-A 15 Sol MS(PCGS#170185)

Winter 2022 U.S. Coins Auction

拍卖行

Stack's Bowers

批号

1010

等级

XF40

价格

677,983

详细说明

The Garrett 1670-A 15 Sols Lecompte Plate Coin 1670-A French Colonies 15 Sols. Paris Mint. Martin 1.1-A.1, Breen 1-A (1976), Breen-255 (1988), W-11610, Gadoury-3, Breton-501, Zay-1, Ciani-255, Lecompte-187a. Rarity-7. EF-40 (PCGS). 104.2 grains. A coin whose visual appeal matches its provenance. Handsome and antique medium silver gray surfaces alight with the kinds of soft blue, pale gold, and pastel highlights that only a century in a cabinet can imbue. Supremely visually appealing, choice and pristine on the obverse and showing only the most trivial hairlines on the reverse. A subtle batch of adjustment marks crosses the upper right fleur-de-lis on the shield, present without diminishing any details, and a few light scratches are seen at LO of GLORIAM, including one that bisects the O. The centering is close to ideal on both sides, though the right reverse periphery is softer than the border on the left. For the grade assigned, it's challenging to imagine a more attractive or well preserved specimen. The die crack present from the left corner of the crown across the base of 1 in the date to the right serif of T in DICENT hallmarks this reverse, as Martin notes it has been seen on all known specimens. The seven examples known to Syd from these dies, listed in his 2015 book, are the same seven examples known to us. With 17 known examples on this entire type, this is the rarer die variety. Of the seven known, three are in museum collections, making the collectible population of this die variety just four coins. Institutional Collections: 1)Bank of Canada Collection. Martin 1 (EF). Ex Parsons 6-1914:2321 and W.W.C. Wilson 11-1925:371. Former Standard Catalogue of United States Coins and Standard Catalogue of Canadian Coinsplate coin. 2)Bank of Canada Collection. Martin 2 (F). Ex R.W. McLachlan - Numismatic and Antiquarian Society of Montreal - Chateau de Ramezay. 3)Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. Martin 3 (F). Ex Ulex 5-1908:6 - Henry Chapman 1908 ANA sale 9-1908:168 - Virgil Brand - Jacques Schulman - Richard Margolis FPL #35 1969:308 - Roper Collection - Stack's Roper sale 12-1983:181 - Joseph Lasser via Anthony Terranova. Private Collections: 4)The Siboni specimen. Martin 5 (EF). Ex Archbishop John Sharp (died 1714) - Baldwin's - John J. Ford, Jr. Collection - Stack's 1-2006:23. Finest known of this variety. 5)The Dittmer specimen. Martin 7 (VF). Ex Argenor Paris 4-2000:379 - Heritage 1-2022:30191. NGC XF-45. 6)This specimen. Martin 4 (VF). Ex Ellsworth-Garrett-Gordon. See full provenance below. 7)The Salvesen specimen. Martin 6 (AVF). Ex Canada Coin Exchange 1960 CNA sale 8-1960:1001 - Superior Galleries 10-1977:131 - Spink Zurich October 1988:65. This coin's long accorded status as the most desirable rarity of pre-Confederation Canada and all of the French Colonies in America matches its esteem among American collectors, few of whom have ever gotten to include a 15 sols in their collection. Since the sale of the Ford specimen in 2006, just three examples of the type have sold in American auctions: the Dittmer coin (NGC EF-45, this variety), the Kendall Foundation coin (PCGS VF-35, the other variety), and the Partrick coin (NGC VF-30, the other variety). Each of these represented advanced collections of decades-long standing, and only the Dittmer coin (acquired 2000) had been previously offered in the last 45 years. In the years before the 2006 Ford sale, there had not been a 1670-A 15 sols sold in the United States since the Lasser-CWF coin sold in the 1983 Roper sale, an interval of 23 years. This piece bears one of the most august provenance chains of any 15 sols extant. After decades in the Ellsworth and Garrett collections, it spent 16 years in the collection of Ralph Gordon, whose research and writing on coins of the West Indies reinvented the field. PCGS has certified just four examples of this entire type. The two finest, and the only ones better than VF, are offered in this and the following lot. Additional information pertaining to this lot: The Most Complete Collection of 1670 French Colonies Coinage Ever Assembled Including Both Die Varieties of 1670 15 Sols and the Unique 1670 Double De L'Amerique Without question, the 1670 issues for the French Colonies of the New World are the focal rarities of the entire French Colonial series. Syd Martin cherished them. He avidly collected them, assembling an unheard-of array of 16 5 sols, two extremely rare 15 sols, and the prized unique Double de l'Amerique. His 2015 work French Coinage Specifically for Colonial Americaincluded his exacting research on the series, both technical numismatic data and historical background. The sum of his remarkable work on these coins will be very difficult to surpass. Syd also delved heavily into the historiography of these rare coins, particularly through auction catalogs offering examples of the 15 sols. The first American offering of a specimen took place in Ed Frossard's May 1882 sale of the Gerald Hart Collection, a coin acquired at the time by the Canadian government and now in the collection of the Bank of Canada. "Concerning the rarity of this coin," Frossard wrote, "fully described by Prof. Anthon in the American Journal of Numismatics, and subsequently illustrated by me in Numisma, but little need be said." He continued: "Let it suffice to state, that during the last 20 years our foremost collectors have in vain endeavored to discover a specimen abroad, and that all orders for it to European coin dealers have up to this time remain unfulfilled. The coin is not in the French National Cabinet, and but two specimens are owned by members of the French Numismatic Society." Though Frossard claimed he had been looking for one for two decades, he was almost certainly exaggerating. The first American mention of the 1670-dated 5 sols and 15 sols appears to have come from the January 1870 American Journal of Numismaticsunder the heading "A New 'Colonial,'" authored anonymously by Prof. Charles Anthon. He cites these coins - and the unique copper double - from his discovery of a short mention in the 1849 edition of the Numismatische Zeitungpublished at "Weissensee in Thuringia, Germany." Anthon's commentary makes clear that he knew of none in any cabinet, American or European. By 1876 (as noted in the January 1877 AJN), Anthon knew of two: a high grade piece in France (presumably the Mint State coin now in the Bibliotheque Nationale) and an example that a Mr. Quackenbush of Hackensack, New Jersey acquired from a sailor who arrived aboard a potato schooner from Nova Scotia. By the time G.M. Fairchild wrote in 1889 in the Canadian Antiquarian and Numismatic Journal, the number known had increased to four. From its first American mention, the 1670 GLORIAM REGNI coinage has been attributed primarily to Canada, based upon Anthon's discovery of a reference to the coinage in the 1690 Traite des Monnoyesby Francois LeBlanc (there identified as "America - Canada"). This attribution has carried on the present day, though Jerome Jambu's 2021 article in the Journal of Early American Numismatics("The Coins Made 'for the Islands and Mainland of America' by the French West India Company (1670)") provides strong original source evidence arguing that these coins were intended not just primarily, but solely, for the islands of the French West Indies. Recounting the first abortive plan for a coinage for the French West Indies in 1665 and the documents that lead to the coinage of 1670, Jambu links the issue to efforts to Christianize the natives of the islands by maintaining a healthy population of Frenchmen, Christian men (and their families) who would need to conduct small scale commerce with a form of money not linked to the annual sugar crop. The reverse legend of the GLORIAM REGNI coins offer a link to these evangelical goals. The legend "Gloria regni tui dicent" comes from Psalm 144: "They will tell of the glory of Your reign and speak of Your power to make known this power to the sons of men, and the magnificent glory of Your kingdom." The portion seen on the coin design represents the first clause: they will tell the glory of Your reign. Jambu sourced documents that show the GLORIAM REGNI 5 sols and 15 sols were struck at the Paris Mint between July 7 and September 4, 1670. Published mintages of 40,000 (for the 15 sols) and 200,000 (for the 5 sols) fairly neatly match Jambu's calculated mintages of 40,877 and 199,087, respectively. The French West Indies Company transported these coins to Martinique, and distribution began in earnest in 1671. An ordinance published on Martinique on February 9 of that year referenced the "introduction of coins," and by year-end the coins had also been delivered to Guadeloupe and the smaller islands of the French Antilles. Struck from good silver and at good weight, with only their legends to distinguish them from mainland French types, the coins quickly left the islands via trade. Despite the explicit proscription of French mainland circulation of the coins, many returned to Europe. Others bounced around the western Atlantic, and hoard evidence shows many did find their way to Canada. Undoubtedly some reached the ports of the English colonies as well. There appear to be roughly 17 examples of the 1670-A 15 sols known. Martin recorded 15 discrete specimens, plus a number of earlier appearances or mentions that could not be matched or traced. Two examples that do not appear to have been previously counted have come to market since the 2015 publication of the Martin book. A full census is given beneath each of the specimens here, representing both known die varieties of the issue. The 1670-A 5 sols, while very scarce and highly sought after, are the only collectible coins from this historic emission. Building upon work done Walter Breen, Bob Vlack, and others, Syd identified 15 obverse dies and 14 reverse dies. In 1976, Breen mentioned five obverses and three reverse; 20 years later, Vlack told this cataloger he had seen only three obverses. In his 1988 Encyclopedia, Breen noted "7 minor vars." After Syd turned his remarkable numismatic talents to this series, we now know of 21, none more common than Rarity-7 individually. Of those, he was able to acquire 11 different die marriages. The fruits of his labors are offered below. Jambu's estimate that some 43 dies were likely used in the production of the 1670 5 sols and 15 sols suggests that further labors will be fruitful as well. Provenance: From the Sydney F. Martin Collection. Earlier ex Col. James W. Ellsworth Collection; John Work Garrett Collection, via Wayte Raymond, 1923; our (Bowers and Ruddy's) sale of the Garrett Collection, October 1980, lot 1297; Ralph C. Gordon Collection; Baldwin's sale of the Ralph C. Gordon Collection, October 1996, lot 234; Anthony Terranova, May 2006. PCGS Population: 1, 1 finer (AU-53). PCGS# 170185. Click here for certification details from PCGS. Image with the PCGS TrueView logo is obtained from and is subject to a license agreement with Collectors Universe, Inc. and its divisions PCGS and PSA. Click here to see Coins in Motion.[“Coins]