(1659) MD 6P Lord Baltimore MS(PCGS#33)

November 2025 Showcase Auction U.S. Coins

Auctioneer

Stack's Bowers

Lot Number

1078

Grade

XF45

Price

11,400

Lot Description

38.2 grains. Really a superior example, one of the nicest and most originally preserved for the type that we have offered in recent sales. In fact, a perusal of our online archives for the last decade or so identifies only the Ross Family Collection specimen as a match for the August coin in terms of originality, strike and overall quality. Also certified EF-45 by PCGS, it brought $13,200 in our November 2024 Showcase Auction. We note that the present example is warmly and pleasantly toned in pewter gray with steely-olive highlights here and there around the peripheries. The impression is well centered on the reverse, a bit off center to 12 o'clock on the obverse, although only the denticulation is beyond the flan along the upper border on the latter side. The strike is uncommonly well executed with universally bold detail throughout and none of the distracting softness that is usually seen in the centers. Lustrous for the grade with no worrisome marks, this lovely piece is worthy of strong bids and will make an impressive addition to any advanced colonial coin cabinet.<p>Choice and original Lord Baltimore sixpence such as this are highly elusive, a fact that the discovery of 19 pieces in a single English hoard in 2002 did little to change. Few of those pieces showed this kind of strike, most were wiped or cleaned, and none showed this sort of richly original toning. At least one example of this type has been recovered in the ground in North America (in southern Virginia), and many are well circulated, definitive proof that this type achieved its purpose of colonial American circulation in the 17th century.