1837 Token HT-292 Copper Merchants Exchange NY, BN MS(PCGS#77529)

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

拍卖行

Stack's Bowers

批号

361

等级

AU58BN

价格

7,623

详细说明

HT-292 Merchants Exchange Rarity Wreath: Five Berries In, Three Out New York--New York. 1837 Merchants Exchange. HT-292, Low-96, W-NY-760-15a. Rarity-6. Copper. Plain Edge. 28.1 mm. AU-58 (PCGS). Coin alignment. A classic rarity among Merchants Exchange tokens, represented here by a handsome near-Mint example displaying blended golden and medium brown. Both sides are satiny, hard and smooth, the surfaces free of detracting marks. With sharp to full striking detail, it is difficult for us to imagine a more desirable example of this number at the assigned grade level. Long recognized as an elusive variety, HT-292 is easily distinguished from its (far) more common HT-291 counterpart by the number and arrangement of berries in the wreath on the reverse. For HT-291 there are six berries in, four outside the wreath. For HT-292, the number and arrangement is five in, three out. Bowers (2015) estimates that only 20 or so are known, most of which grade VF or EF. The present example is finer than the Steinberg 1989 piece, cataloged as Extremely Fine, and far finer than the VF Dice-Hicks specimen. The Miller-Hetrich-Ford specimen is Uncirculated and may very well be the finest known; it was certified MS-62 BN by NGC when reoffered in our (Stack's) Philadelphia Americana Sale of September 2009. Remarkably, our September 2009 Philadelphia Americana Sale featured a second Uncirculated example: NGC MS-61 BN. The SLT-Bowers specimen offered here has legitimate claim to CC#3. Provenance: Ex Mike Ringo, March 14, 1989; Stephen L. Tanenbaum estate, November 2013. The plate token for the variety in the 2015 Whitman Guide Book of Hard Times Tokensby Q. David Bowers. Collector tag with attribution and provenance notes included.