1760 Voce Populi farthing. Nelson-2, W-13810. Small Letters. MS-63 BN (PCGS).53.0 grains. Frosty and lustrous light brown with a few twinges of mint color remaining in protected areas. Exceptionally boldly struck, with a fully realized obverse portrait, complete reverse devices, and high relief border around both sides. The obverse is aligned to 10:00, with a significant unstruck area outside the border at the lower right and some natural rounded unevenness at the rim in the upper left. The reverse is better centered, with a straight clip just right of 12:00 and some missing denticles at the lower left. Light natural scattered planchet pits are seen on the obverse, but no post-striking flaws. The reverse shows some shallow fissures that present mostly as mottled color, a touch more significant at the head of the seated Hibernia but trivial overall. High grade and problem free, a choice example of a rarity that is important in any grade. This variety was struck before the still rare but more frequently seen Large Letters variety, with which it shares a reverse. <p>The Ryder-Boyd-Ford collection of Voces, formed over the course of nearly a century, lacked this variety, as Michael Hodder noted in the collection’s introduction: “Why he did not include a Small Letters Farthing when Nelson knew of the variety is perhaps explained by the great rarity of the piece.” Ted Craige also never got one. Nelson’s own specimen was offered in Stack’s June 1973 sale, bringing $5,000, an enormous sum at the time. Besides that coin and this one, the only other one this cataloger has encountered is the example impounded in the Lasser Collection at Colonial Williamsburg. It’s hard to imagine that this example is not the finest in private hands.PCGS Population: 1, none finer.From the Archangel Collection. Earlier, from Stack’s sale of the David Spence Collection, March 1975, lot 713.
