1670-A Cop Dbl, BN MS(PCGS#174025)

Winter 2022 U.S. Coins Auction

拍卖行

Stack's Bowers

批号

1029

等级

VF35BN

价格

3,559,411

详细说明

The Unique 1670-A Double de l'Amerique First Use of America on a Coin Only Example Known A Classic 1670-A French Colonies Double de l’Amerique. Paris Mint. Martin, chapter 5. Lecompte-185, W-11600, Breen-257. VF-35 (PCGS). 62.3 grains. The crown jewel of the Syd Martin Collection of French colonial coins and one of the most significant rarities in the entire realm of early American numismatics. Choice dark chocolate brown with smooth, hard surfaces. With good gloss and no granularity, this piece offers outstanding visual appeal for a 17th century copper. Well struck and well detailed, with strong peripheries and just trivial reverse weakness at 12 o'clock and 6 o'clock. The central reverse shows softness at C of FRANCOISE, but the obverse is completely struck and boldly defined. A few trivial flaws below D of LVD on the obverse and above DE on the reverse are inherent in the planchet and as-struck. An old diagonal scratch is noted in the lower right obverse field, and a horizontal scrape is present on either side of the obverse mintmark. On the reverse, a thin scratch is seen through the left fleur-de-lis, and a shallow flan defect is seen left of that fleur near the border. Very attractive, little worn, and nicely preserved, this piece carries its historical importance with visual aplomb. This is the most significant French colonial coin in existence. Struck as part of the first coinage intended for the French New World, it is both the first and the rarest. This is the only specimen extant. The reverse reads DOVBLE / DE LA / MERIQUE / FRANCOISE or "double of French America." The engraving error, which substituted an incorrect De La Merique instead of the correct De L'Amerique, should not overshadow what this coin states: it was produced for French America. It is the first coin ever struck to name this landmass as part of its designs. This piece has been offered publicly only once, in the 1996 Norweb Canadian sale. Before and since, dating to the time this coin was in the legendary cabinet of Count Phillip Ferrari de la Renotiere (1850-1917), collectors have only had a chance to acquire this coin by private treaty. Since Virgil Brand acquired Ferrari's French coin cabinet intact in 1924, just four collectors have owned it: Virgil Brand, Emery May Norweb, Anthony Terranova, and Syd Martin. But 50 years before the coin reached American shores for the first time, American collectors already knew about this coin and coveted it. First mentioned in the American Journal of Numismaticsin 1870, Crosby illustrated this coin in the 1875 Early Coins of Americaby virtue of a copy provided by "M. Jules Marcou, of Cambridge." The image on Crosby's Plate III doesn't allow us to definitively identify it as a cast or an electrotype; there appear to be one of each, made around this time, in the collection of the Bibliotheque Nationale, and Marcou's was probably from the same batch as one of them. Marcou, a French-born geologist who worked alongside Louis Agassiz, is perhaps best known to American numismatists as the man whose original Diplomatic Medal cliches were provided to the U.S. Mint in 1876 to be copied by engraver William Barber. At the time Crosby published this piece for the first time, little was known of the coin's origin or of its intended distribution. As recounted by Jerome Jambu in his definitive article on the 1670 coinage of the French West India Company (Journal of Early American Numismatics, 2021), the concept of a double (or two) denier piece struck for French possessions in the New World dates to 1665, when a plan was hatched to strike 2.4 million of them, along with silver 15 and 5 sols coins. The adopted 1670 plan echoed that from 1665, with plans to source the raw copper for the doubles from melting older double tournois coins that were recovered at the French mint in Nantes. The coppers were to be struck in Paris and shipped, alongside their silver brethren, to islands of the French West Indies. In the weeks before the coins were to be struck on a massive scale, a new regulation was passed down from the King's Council of Commerce that would end the coinage of doubles before it began. On June 23, 1670, the French government authorized the doubles to be replaced by old double tournois and billon sols in the Caribbean-bound shipment, a revelation that, as Jambu wrote, "was the first official authorization of the export of coins from the French kingdom to the Antilles." This document was written on June 23, 1670. The mintage of silver 5 sols and 15 sols began at the Paris mint on July 7, just two weeks later. Sometime in that roughly two-week period, some small number of "doubles for French America" were struck, leaving a total surviving population of one. The dies were included in a 1672 estate inventory of equipment belonging to Jean Warin, the Paris mint engraver. Whether a small mintage was struck with intentions to circulate them - and some were released - or if this coinage belongs more to the realm of patterns (or essais), we may never know: the documents are silent. The only relevant document we have is this coin, which clearly saw some circulation. There are essais extant from the Paris Mint in this era, often high grade, nicely preserved in a cabinet from the time of their mintage. This example is something different: worn, used as money, and, it would appear, struck for circulation. The only other copper coin struck for exclusive circulation in the American colonies of the New World in the 17th century is the ca. 1658 Maryland denarium. It, too, has occasionally been called a pattern, but just like this coin, its survivors are predominantly in circulated condition. Though rare, the Maryland denarium is common enough that more than one has been uncovered in American soil, settling forever the question of whether they were struck as patterns or as circulating coins. There would not be another attempt to strike coppers for the French New World until 1717. That plan also failed, but the coppers produced in 1721 and 1722 were struck in large enough numbers that they circulated widely, in both North America and the West Indies. The first copper coins struck in North America (outside of Mexico, at least) were coined in Connecticut in 1737. As the first and rarest of its kind, this coin's fascination among collectors far surpasses the world of French colonial coinage. This is a collection centerpiece, just as it was in the Norweb Collection, and just as it was for Syd Martin. 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 Count Ferrari de la Renotiere Collection; acquired en masse with the Count Ferrari Collection of French coins by Virgil Brand, via Jacques Schulman, 1924; Virgil Brand Collection; Brand Estate to B.G. Johnson; Wayte Raymond to John J. Ford, Jr.; Mrs. Emery May Norweb, via New Netherlands Coin Company, 1954; our (Bowers and Merena's) sale of the Norweb Collection of Canadian and Provincial Coins, November 1996, lot 705; Anthony Terranova Collection; John Agre and Dave Wnuck (Coin Rarities Online), via Mike Wierzba, January 2008. PCGS# 174025. Click here for certification details from PCGS. Click here to see Coins in Motion.[“Coins]