Circa 1792 Washington Born Virginia. Musante GW-32, Baker-60, var., Breen-1238. Copper. Plain edge. EF Details—Cleaned. (PCGS).31.1 mm. 160.0 grains. Mostly olive brown with light steel overtones, though the left obverse exhibits light reddish mahogany from an old cleaning that has largely toned back. Light hairlines are visible under magnification, but otherwise the effects are not terribly distracting. As Washington Born Virginia coppers come, this one was nicely and evenly struck and quite sharp as a result. The obverse is fully defined and well centered. The reverse is centered just slightly to the lower left, with the dentils lost in this area, but those in opposition are quite long. The often uneven legend is complete on this piece save for the S of PRESIDENT and weakness at OF THE below. This is the rare muling of the obverse used on Baker-60 and the reverse used on Baker-59, a combination not known to Baker himself in 1885. Just three were known to Walter Breen when he wrote his <em>Encyclopedia</em> (Breen-1238). He listed them as 1. Appleton to MHS; 2. Parmelee-Norweb; 3. Fuld, Groves:433. We sold the Norweb specimen in November 2006. It was graded VF-35 by PCGS and had better surfaces, though this piece has sharper reverse detail. The Norweb piece brought $12,650. The Parmelee-Norweb connection given by Breen is uncertain, as the example in Parmelee was not plated and it sold to “Mills” per a named catalog. It was not in the John G. Mills sale, so we don’t know what became of it. Neil Musante noted that there were three to five known examples without specific citations, but we are aware of about ten. Some are very weak on the reverse, including the Musante plate, Groves:433, Oechsner:1410, and Sussex:4089. The Breen plate piece is similar to this one, while the one in Kagin’s October 1976 sale appears a bit nicer. Rare in any case and certainly one of the sharpest in private hands.From the E Pluribus Unum Collection.
