1652 Shilling Pine Tree, Monogrammed NE MS(PCGS#45373)

November 2025 Showcase Auction U.S. Coins

Auctioneer

Stack's Bowers

Lot Number

4350

Grade

MS63

Price

21,600

Lot Description

68.2 grains. <strong>The 1991 ANS Exhibition Coin, No. 99.</strong> Lovely deep gray in color with some pale steel-blue highlights in the toning. Obverse about perfectly centered, just the letters TS at right running close to the edge due to a straight clip at 4 o'clock. The reverse is struck slightly off center to 9 o'clock, but only the tip of the letter W runs to the edge. Obverse center sharply defined, reverse center a trifle soft due to the usual clashing. An outstandingly nice specimen graced by a desirable provenance.<p>As noted in our (Stack's) January 2002 Hain catalog, this coin sold for more than any other piece of Massachusetts silver in the Stearns sale, but for the NE coins and seven of nine Willow Trees - no Pine or Oak issue surpassed it among that superb collection. It clearly ranks among the finest Noe-8 Pine Trees, alongside both the Wurtzbach-Ford:94 coin in our (Stack's) October 2005 Ford XII sale, that piece called "Gem Uncirculated" by the writer (Michael Hodder, who was founder in 1993 of the Colonial Coin Collectors Club), and the Boyd-Ford:95 piece that most recently appeared in our August 2023 sale of the Sydney F. Martin Collection, Part IV, lot 8179, as PCGS MS-63. All three are nicer than anything in Norweb, Picker, Roper, and a host of other cabinets. This one would serve as the focal point in an advanced colonial era type set or as a leading highlight in a world class collection of Massachusetts Bay Colony silver.