Minted for just a few months in 1652, these threepence coins have been collectors' items for centuries, and this one has just set the record for most valuable coin produced before the American Revolution.
Stack’s Bowers GalleriesOne side of the 1652 Boston Mint threepence is stamped with “NE,” for “New England,” while the other side features Roman numerals representing its value.
Eight years ago, in the back of an old cabinet in Amsterdam, a small silver coin was found. It’s roughly the size of a nickel and technically has a silver value of just $1.03. However, there is something uniquely remarkable about this coin: It was minted in colonial Boston in 1652, more than a century before the Thirteen Colonies declared their independence from Britain.
Stamped with “NE” to signify New England, this silver coin represents a rare act of early rebellion by the Thirteen Colonies, a defiant act against the royal overlords who sought to impose their will on the colonists. Very few of these coins have survived to the present day, which explains why this seemingly insignificant threepence just sold at auction for more than $2.5 million.
The auction itself was a tense affair, with collectors engaging in a fierce 12-minute bidding war for ownership of the coin. Ben Orooji, a numismatist at Stack’s Bowers Galleries, called the night “an exhilarating ride and a career highlight,” according to a statement from the auction house. In fact, the coin’s staggering sale price set a new record for an American coin made before the Revolution, highlighting just how special this coin really is.
The Story Behind This 1652 Boston Mint Threepence
In 2016, a homeowner in the Netherlands discovered the coin in an antique cabinet. It was inside of an old pasteboard box, alongside a note that read: “Silver token unknown / From Quincy Family / B. Ma. Dec, 1798.”
Initially, the discoverer had no clue what this coin’s historical importance was. Through cooperation with Professional Coin Grading Service (PCGS), more information about the coin came to light. PCGS conducted extensive research, testing, and analysis, comparing this coin to another surviving specimen of its kind in order to estimate its actual worth.
What they found is that the note was indeed written in 1798, but the coin itself had been made at the Boston Mint in 1652. By the time the note was written, these coins were already considered a valuable rarity. Moreover, this coin was confirmed to have ties to the Quincy family, which included first lady Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams.
The Reading Room/Alamy Stock PhotoAn illustration depicting John Hull of the Boston Mint.
“Lots of coins get called important,” said John Kraljevich, Stack’s Bowers Galleries Director of Numismatic Americana, in another statement. “It’s hard to imagine anything more important than the discovery of a famous rarity, part of the first series of American coins ever made, that actually allows a collector to own a previously unobtainable type.”
The Boston Mint actively defied the British crown’s authority in producing its own coins, constituting an early act of rebellion against British rule. According to the Massachusetts Historical Society, this represented New England’s “growing sense of identity as separate from the mother country and its determination to regulate its own economy.”
By 1781, these Boston Mint coins were rare objects of fascination among collectors. That year, English coin collector Thomas Brand Hollis wrote to future president and then-ambassador to the Netherlands, John Adams, for aid in acquiring one of the Boston Mint coins. Adams then asked his wife, Abigail, for help, as her great-grandfather was the stepbrother of John Hull, the silversmith who minted these coins in the first place.
“Pray send me, half a dozen if you can procure them by different Occasions,” Adams wrote to his wife.
Wikimedia CommonsThe note with the box in which the coin was found suggests that it had been shipped from Boston by relatives of John Adams in 1798, though its exact provenance remains uncertain.
While it hasn’t been confirmed if the recently auctioned threepence was among the group shipped by Adams across the Atlantic, the auction house said “the connection appears likely.”
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The Record-Breaking, $2.52-Million Sale Of This Incredibly Rare Coin
Only one other threepence coin of this type is known to have survived to the present day, and it’s currently held in the Massachusetts Historical Society’s collection. This newly-auctioned coin, then, is the only one that has ever been made available to private collectors.
“As the very first American coins, NE shillings, sixpence, and threepence see a high level of demand and sell for dramatically high prices to well-heeled, historically minded collectors,” said Stack’s Bowers Galleries Vice President Vicken Yegparian. “The record for an NE coin is $646,250, but we expect this piece to handily exceed that level.”
As such, the bidding was intense among collectors in attendance. Over the course of 12 minutes, the coin’s price grew to three times the size of its presale estimates, ultimately selling for $2.52 million and becoming the most expensive non-gold U.S. coin struck before the founding of the United States Mint in 1792. Evidently, Yegparian’s prediction was correct.
Wikimedia CommonsA silver pine tree shilling also produced by the Boston Mint.
There was once another Boston Mint coin like this one that was housed at Yale University, but that information was relatively little-known until a robbery at the university in 1965. Curators and researchers confirmed that the coin was no longer at Yale after the fact, but it remains unclear if it was stolen during the robbery or had gone missing beforehand.
In any case, these Boston Mint coins are exceedingly rare and offer a unique glimpse into a dramatic chapter in history.
When the Boston Mint was established in 1652, England was in the middle of the Interregnum, a period of 11 years when the kingdom was without a royal ruler and instead functioned as a republic. And if England was without a king, the Boston Mint would have legal wiggle room to produce its own coins, an act that would have been in defiance of the crown. For this reason, even after 1652, the Boston Mint continued to stamp its coins with that year, ostensibly situating them within the Interregnum and giving the mint plausible deniability regarding the legality of their production.
Ultimately, the monarchy was re-established when Charles II took the throne in 1660, and the Boston Mint shuttered its doors in 1682 “after closer royal scrutiny of the operation.”
It’s little wonder, then, that this coin, a relic of a pivotal moment in history, sold for such an astonishingly high price.
After learning about the auction of this rare Boston Mint coin, read about the real history of who discovered America or what really happened to the Roanoke Colony.
