2017-08-11 Fri

The American Numismatic Association World’s Fair of Money auctions were held from 1st to 5th August, offering something for virtually every collector. The summer ANA auctions present a mix of carefully assembled collections and individual delicacies. Two collections offered, represent the spectrum of offerings at the 2017 ANA auctions, where fascinating items don’t necessarily need to be the most expensive.

Heritage offered the Don Willis Collection of U.S. Colonial Coinage as part of its Platinum Night sale on 2nd August. Willis is president of Professional Coin Grading Service and the offered set was the current #2 Registry Set in the category of “Finest Early American Coins and Tokens Complete Design Set (1916-1820).

Willis says when he started collecting Colonials; he bought the highest grade he could find. However, he realized that an uncirculated Colonial intrigued him and this brought a shift in interest, leading him to sell his uncirculated coins.

Leading off the auction of Willis’s collection was an undated (1652) New England shilling graded Extremely Fine 45 by PCGS and bearing a green Certified Acceptance Corporation sticker. The design, shared by three denominations, is primitive, or alternately, minimalist. One side is punched NE while the denomination — either III (threepence), VI (sixpence) or XII (shilling) — is punched on the other side. The two design elements are positioned at the top of one side and the bottom of the other side so the punches wouldn’t interfere with one another.

No one knows the exact numbers struck, but one thing is for sure that these early Massachusetts silver issues were produced in some quantity.

Six distinct die varieties are known of the shilling, with three NE punches and three XII punches used. The offered example — listed as Noe 1-A in the series reference — is the most common of the varieties. The Heritage reports, half of the existing population of Noe-1-A New England shillings will be found in museums, including three examples in the British Museum and one each in Hunterian Museum, the Smithsonian institution, the American Numismatic Society, and the Colonial Williamsburg Collection.

The $164,500 that the Willis coin brought on Aug. 2 is a bit more than the $152,750 that it sold for when offered as part of Stack’s Bowers’ offering of the Henry P. Kendall Foundation’s collection in 2015 where it was described as “a picturesque piece of ancient Americana.”

More unusual was a 1783 Georgivs Triumpho token graded EF-45 and bearing a green CAC sticker that sold for $1,762.50.

According to Walter Breen, the box on the reverse depicts a weaving frame while other research interlinks the issue with the launch of the first hot air balloon in France in September 1783. Before crashing down to the ground, the balloon successfully showcased a sheep, a duck and a rooster for 15 minutes or so. The idea that the seated figure might depict a seated Britannia in a hot air balloon basket is whimsical, though, like many elements of early American numismatics, the exact story is likely lost to history.

These tokens were circulated in Virginia, Georgia and South Carolina, and in contrast to most George Washington tokens dated in the 1780s, these were struck during that decade and many of them were used as host planchets for New Jersey coppers. As Heritage once noted in a description for a comparable example, the portrait resembles Washington less than another famous George from the era, King George III, perhaps because a bust or painting of Washington was not available to the engraver.