Missouri--St. Louis. 1836 Huckel, Burrows & Jennings. HT-187, Low-102, W-MO-020-10b. Rarity-7+. Brass. Plain Edge. AU Details--Reverse Damage (NGC).29 mm. Medallic die alignment. A highly desirable example of this legendary rarity among Hard Times tokens. This is a handsome piece with fully original surfaces. Blushes of warm pewter-gray in the protected areas give way to lighter brassy-olive elsewhere. Wispy hairlines are easily overlooked in hand, and there are only a few faint spots that are mostly confined to the obverse. A couple of tiny digs in the lower field on that side, above the date, are noted, but it is an attempted puncture at the upper reverse border that best explains the NGC qualifier.<p>Extremely rare: there may be as few as four of these known, at very least we can certainly account for only three others, the example permanently impounded in the American Numismatic Societys collection, the Ford/Dice-Hicks specimen that was most recently offered as lot 107 in our September 2013 Philadelphia Sale, certified MS-61 by NGC, and the piece in Presidential Coin & Antique Co., Inc.s sale of March 1976, described as "AU with a few small areas of discoloration" therein. To the best of our memory and research effort there have been only five auction appearances of a Huckel, Burrows & Jennings token issue in more than 100 years, and Ford/Dice-Hicks piece accounts for three of those. As the only St. Louis, Missouri issuer of a token during the Hard Times era and as a great rarity in its own right, we fully expect this piece to see spirited bidding. It is one of the great desiderata in the field.<p>Huckel, Burrows & Jennings were grocers and also chandlers to steamships on the Missouri and Mississippi rivers. One wonders if Missouri native Samuel Clemens "Mark Twain" may have conceived the idea for a character named "Huckleberry Finn" from the title of this firm.