1788 New Jersey copper. Maris 66-u. Rarity-7+. Braided Mane. EF Detail, Environmental Damage (PCGS).108.4 grains. One of the great rarities of the entire New Jersey copper series, and one of the few varieties that was added to the Garrett Collection decades after the acquisition of the Maris coins. This piece is listed in the SHI Condition Census as second finest known and the finest in private hands, surpassed by only the example in the New Jersey Historical Society. The surfaces are dark brown, nearly obsidian, with hard glossy surfaces that appear somewhat irregular from ground exposure. The devices are a bit lighter and show some contrast. Many tiny pits and raised specks of corrosion are seen over both sides, with the largest concentration seen in the upper right obverse field. Some old toned scratches are seen on the plow, date, and low on the central obverse device, and another batch is located to the lower left of the shield. A thin lamination bisects E of E PLURIBUS, and the rim is crude and irregular above RE of CAESAREA on the obverse. The sharpness is superb, and little wear befell this coin before it fell into the soil.<p>This piece came to the Garrett Collection from the collection of fellow Baltimorean Waldo Newcomer, via an outsider from Fort Worth: B. Max Mehl. Mehl had successfully acquired a substantial portion of the Newcomer Collection in 1931 when he wrote to John Work Garrett offering the entire colonial American portion of the cabinet. Mehl “added up on a machine the total of the colonial collection,” according to his letter to Garrett, and came up with $52,569. He offered the entire lot to Garrett at 15% less, $44,684, and offered to help sell any duplicates. For all of October and November 1931, Garrett and Mehl went back and forth. Garrett wrote Mehl to tell him he had “gone over all the coins you left with me very carefully and selected the ones that I want to purchase … You will see that the total as far as the colonial pieces are concerned is $8,081.25” Garrett sent the other coins back “by express … [and] insured them for $40,000.” A month passed as Mehl tried to work on Garrett, particularly hoping to sell him some very expensive territorial gold coins. But, by the end of it, Garrett ended up with 25 colonial coins — and the 1742 Lima-Style Brasher Doubloon. Among those 25 colonials were 10 New Jersey coppers, including the present lot. In November 1931, Mehl asked Garrett to send him some of the highlights back so that he could photograph them for a Newcomer Collection catalog he planned. Mehl requested the “Washington cent, E Pluribus Unum” for which Garrett had paid $1,100; that Maris 4-C brought $50,000 in October 1980. Mehl also asked for two otherwise undescribed New Jerseys for which he charged $1,000 and $1,050, an absolute fortune at the time. These must have been Garrett’s two 1786 Date Under Plow coppers, Maris 7-E and Maris 8-F. The Maris 7-E ended up in the 1984 Picker sale, having been sold by Johns Hopkins privately as a duplicate. The Maris 8-F was sold in the 1980 Garrett III sale (but with an incorrect provenance to Ellsworth, not Newcomer, as is indicated in Garrett’s records). The only other New Jersey copper Mehl asked to see again was the “New Jersey cent, 1788, the unique variety, $400,” the then-unique 1788 Maris 65 1/2-r, sold as lot 1468 in the Garrett sale.<p>When John Work Garrett acquired this piece, it was as an upgrade. He already owned the Maris piece, acquired by his father T. Harrison Garrett in 1886. That piece, more worn and a flipover double strike, remainder in the Garrett Collection until privately deaccessioned. It appeared in our 1984 Richard Picker sale and is currently ranked fourth best of the five examples recorded. The most recent discovered piece, found unattributed in a consignment from the Schwenkfelder Library and Heritage Center, is ranked fifth; it brought $20,700 in our May 2005 sale. That piece and the third-ranked Boyd-Ford specimens are the only ones sold at public auction since 1984.From the E Pluribus Unum Collection of New Jersey Coppers. Earlier, from the Waldo C. Newcomer Collection; John Work Garrett Collection, via B. Max Mehl, October 1931; Johns Hopkins University; Bowers and Ruddy Galleries’ sale of the Garrett Collection, Part III, October 1980, lot 1470.
