An extraordinarily rare coin, with a face value of just a few pennies when it was minted in mid-17th century New England, could sell for about $ 300,000 when it goes up for auction next month in London.
The silver one shilling coin made in Boston in 1652, considered the best example of 40 of its kind known to still exist,
was recently found in the UK inside a candy tin
containing hundreds of older coins. auctioneer Morton & Eden Ltd. said in a statement on Wednesday.
James Morton, a coin specialist,
called it the "star of the collection."
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“I could hardly believe my eyes when I realized that it was an excellent example of a New England shilling, minted in 1652, in Boston, by John Hull to be used as currency by the early settlers of the Bay of Colony. Massachusetts, "he said in a statement.
In 1652, the Massachusetts General Court appointed Hull and his assistant, Robert Sanderson, as masters of the Boston mint, responsible for producing America's first silver coin.
Considered a traitor by King Charles II, that mint was closed in 1682, the text said.
The crudely designed piece has the initials NE, for New England, on one side, and on the other, the Roman numeral XII, the total of pennies in a shilling.
Jim Bailey, a coin and metals expert from Warwick, Rhode Island, who caused a sensation earlier this year by unearthing seventeenth-century silver coins believed to be related to the famous English pirate Henry Every,
called the shilling "a discovery. phenomenal".
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"The coin has tremendous visual appeal," Bailey said Wednesday.
"Since there are only about 40 pieces of this type,
this specimen can be considered the finest known,
" he said.
The coin was consigned to the auctioneer by Wentworth Beaumont, whose father
found it in a tin in his study on the family estate in northern England.
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Beaumont's ancestor William Wentworth was one of the first settlers to New England, believed to have arrived in the colonies in 1636 and probably obtained the coin when it was new.
The Wentworths became a prominent family in New Hampshire.
"I can only assume that the shilling was brought to America years ago by one of my ancestors"
,
Beaumont said in a statement.
The online auction, which includes other antique pieces from America, is scheduled for November 26.
