1786 Connecticut Copper. Miller 6-K, W-2690. Rarity-5. Draped Bust Left. VF-35 (PCGS).174.6 grains. Beautiful caramel brown surfaces are glossy and smooth with virtually no apologies to be made save for a thin, mostly retained lamination at Liberty’s knee. There are a couple of other minor natural flaws as well, but they are fairly trivial in the scope of what is frequently seen. In the Ford catalog, slide marks from an old Wayte Raymond board were noted, but we do not detect them, so perhaps they were confined to surface oils. One of just two 1786-dated varieties with the Draped Bust portrait and a superb example of the type. The former Norweb coin was sold by us in our January 2012 offering of the Collection SLT coins and is the nicest we have handled in recent memory. It was a bit sharper on the obverse than this one, but weaker on the reverse. It brought $9,775. The more recently offered Eric Newman coin was another of similar quality. It was more evenly struck with slightly better detail. It brought $3,120 in 2014. All three were of similar color and struck similarly off center toward 12:00. It would be interesting indeed to compare these three coins side by side to see how they really rank. That aside, this one has one of the great Connecticut provenances back to Henry C. Miller.From the Twin Leaf Collection of Connecticut & Massachusetts Coppers. Earlier ex Henry C. Miller, December 2018, “in exchange”; Hillyer C. Ryder; F.C.C. Boyd; John J. Ford, Jr., Stack’s Ford Part IX, May 2005:277.
