GREAT BRITAIN. Copper Farthing Pattern, 1714. London Mint. Anne. PCGS AU-58 Brown Gold Shield.S-3625; KM-537; P-743. Boldly struck with attractive brown surfaces and faint traces of mint red. Extraordinary quality, an especially nice example of one of Englands great "story" coins. Queen Anne farthings (copper, one-fourth of a penny, exist with the dates of 1713 and 1714, but seem to have been made in relatively small quantities, perhaps in the thousands. Seemingly, no accurate account exists of them. Beginning many years ago the Queen Anne farthing was pinpointed as a great rarity. The standard reference on the subject by C. Wilson Peck, English Copper, Tin and Bronze Coins in the British Museum 1558-1958, tells this: "The origin of the popular belief which prevailed early in the nineteenth century, that an Anne farthing was worth virtually a small fortune, is still unknown, but how widely this erroneous idea caught on up and down the country is apparent from the following short account by J. Henry: Amongst the many infatuations which have possessed the people of this country, the popular error connected with the farthings of Queen Anne is one of the most curious and remarkable. The common belief was, and is even yet with many persons, that only three were ever struck, and that these are of immense value. The origin of this idle story is unknown, one account is that a lady [from Yorkshire] many years since, having lost an Anne farthing, which probably had, from some circumstance or other, great value for her, offered a large reward for its restoration; another, a possessor of one of these farthings offered it for sale in a newspaper for £500; a yet further tale is, that an auctioneer to advertise himself, once offered one of these coins for sale, and nominally knocked it down to a bidder for £500, which of course getting very much talked about, served his purpose. Although nothing is clearly known from whence this error sprung, the fact remains that for a long period it has been in existence. "In Esperellas Letters from England, 1808, it is stated that A man was brought before the magistrates charged by a soldier with giving assaulted him on the highway, and robbed him of eight pounds, some silver, and a Queen Annes farthing. The man protested his innocence and brought sufficient proof of it. Upon further investigation it was discovered that some pettifogging lawyer, as ignorant as he was villainous, had suborned the soldier to bring this accusation against an innocent, in the hopes of hanging him and getting possession of the farthing. "At Dublin, 1814, an extraordinary trial took place in connection with one of these coins, an account of which appeared in The British Press newspaper, on the 14th February in that year, by which it appears that a man named Gorge Hone received twelve months imprisonment for stealing a Queen Annes farthing. And so impressed were the parties of its great value, that it was estimated that £700 was half the price that would be realized by its sale! The council for the Crown further informed the jury that only three specimens were known, that the die broke upon striking the third farthing; and that one farthing was in the Kings Museum, the second in the British Museum, the third being missing, was presumed to be the one in question. Parties have travelled to London from all parts of the country with Anne farthings, hoping to make a fortune by selling them, even these have been in many instances only jettons of the period and not farthings at all."Considering there may well have been 400 or more Anne farthings in existence at the time, it is extraordinary that this curious misconception should have persisted so long, especially in view of the several notices which appeared in quick succession in the newspapers during March 1802, advertising Ann farthings for sale."In 1859 in his fixed price list, pioneer dealer Augustus B. Sage offered a pair of Queen Anne farthings, one each of 1713 and 1714, for $11. By way of comparison, a gem Proof 1856 Flying Eagle cent cost $2 at the time!From Jeff Zarit in 2012, graded MS-63, wholesale at $2,300; From the Q. David Bowers Collection.
