1787 Fugio 1C Newman 2-C, United States Club Rays, FUCIO, BN MS(PCGS#878521)

August 2023 Global Showcase Auction U.S. Coins

Auktionator

Stack's Bowers

Losnummer

8444

Erhaltungsgrad

XF40

Preis

14.400

Losbeschreibung

Very Rare "FUCIO" Cent The Ellis Robison Specimen 1787 Fugio Cent. Club Rays. Newman 2-C, W-6630. Rarity-6-. Concave Ends, FUCIO, UNITED STATES. EF-40 (PCGS). 132.4 grains. An impressive light chocolate brown example of this most available of the extremely rare Club Rays, Concave Ends type, this one with the distinct misspelling of FUGIO as FUCIO. Though perhaps an anachronistic interpretation, as the intended name of these Federal cents was not "Fugio cent," but misspelling FUGIO seems akin to misspelling one's own name! The Club Rays, Concave Ends type is thought to have come near the end of the Fugio cent production run, the Fine Rays hub having been reworked into the various Club Rays variants due to damage sustained to the Fine Rays hub. With the Coppers Panic of 1789 brewing, the coiners decided to increase the weights of the flans in response to the backlash against the overabundance of underweight trash circulating as coppers at the time, and this uptick in weight is seemingly represented in the small sample of known concave end Club Rays Fugio cents. The Newman 2-C is the most available of the seven die combinations of five Concave Ends obverses and seven reverse dies. These seven die combinations are represented by fewer than 50 pieces, and four of these seven combinations are known by only a single example, a strange distribution that defies the imagination. James Jarvis' mint at New Haven undoubtedly would not have gone through the effort of sinking so many dies to strike what on its face appears to be such a limited quantity, so it is thought that a much larger mintage of this type was made, only to be subsequently melted down in the aftermath of the Coppers Panic. This example is well struck and centered toward the right on both faces, the rings coming into contact with the rim on the reverse. The planchet shows a shallow streak across the upper obverse, and a corresponding lesser streak at lower reverse where slag in the metal was elongated as the planchet stock was rolled out. The general planchet texture has created some peripheral softness affecting MI and BU of MIND YOUR BUSINESS, while the defining FUCIO spelling error is quite bold. The last PCGS EF-40 we sold was in May 2019, the Stickney-Ryder-Boyd-Ford example that brought $22,800. Provenance: From the Sydney F. Martin Collection. Earlier from our (Stack's) sale of the Ellis Robison Collection, February 1982, lot 70; Donald Scarinci Collection, November 2010. To view supplemental information and all items from the Sydney F. Martin Collection, click here. PCGS# 878521. Click here for certification details from PCGS. Image with the PCGS TrueView logo is obtained from and is subject to a license agreement with Collectors Universe, Inc. and its divisions PCGS and PSA.