Undated (1659) Maryland Lord Baltimore sixpence. Hodder 2-B, W-1050. AU-53 (PCGS).44.2 grains. A flashy and lustrous specimen, with intermingled lilac and gold on the obverse and lighter tones on the silvery reverse. Very well struck, with a fully rendered portrait and complete shield. The reverse is ideally centered, the obverse is trivially misaligned to 2:00, with some unstruck area visible outside the denticles at the lower left. Two worn hairline scratches are seen above the crown of the head, and some faint old hairlines are visible on both sides. A popular issue and the most frequently encountered of the Maryland Lord Baltimore denominations, thanks largely to a small hoard discovered in England within the last 15 years. While those pieces mostly showed evidence of cleaning, and may never have circulated in North America, this pieces provenance predates that find. Its quality outpaces most surviving examples from any source.PCGS Population: 8; 8 finer (MS-62 finest).From the Archangel Collection. Earlier, from Stacks sale of the Donald Groves Collection, November 1974, lot 300.
