(ca. 1784-1787) Ephraim Brasher (EB) Regulated England George I 1718 Quarter-Guinea. AU-55 (PCGS).31.5 grains. An iconic regulated gold piece from early America, with the most superlative provenance and marked by the most famous of all early American regulators. This piece also bears the unique distinction of being the smallest of all known Brasher regulated English coins. Weighing 31.5 grains (the PCGS holder says 31.2 grains), this piece would have been worth $1.16 by the 1793 Federal standard. By the 1784 Bank of New York weight standard to which Brasher worked, the weight of this coin is right on the money: one-quarter of 126 grains is exactly 31.5!The Brasher mark is bold and well centered in its usual position, nearly fully outlined and showing both letters crisply, along with the stop in between. The E is sharper than the B due to the topography of George Is portrait. This piece is not plugged, to bring the weight up, but instead clipped down to the prevailing standard in the typical Brasher fashion: with neat straight clips at the rim at 6 oclock and 5 oclock relative to the obverse. The rest of the circumference retains its original edge device, and the coin remained in exceptionally high grade both before and after it was in Brashers shop.The coin is bright and lustrous yellow, with neither defect nor discoloration. A die crack crosses the kings throat, and a few raised die lines are seen on the reverse, as struck. Only the most trivial hairlines are present.The remarkable Garrett Collection included five Brasher regulated coins: this (the highest grade of them all), three English guineas, and a single Portuguese half Joe. Interestingly, the general population of Brasher marked coins is somewhat inverted from that: Portuguese and Brazilian coins make up the greatest proportion, followed by English coins. Guineas are the most common denomination among English types -- not surprising considering there were 100 of them, "the most part of them clipped and plugged...the plug stamped EB," in Philadelphia merchant James Vanuxems desk when his shop was burglarized in January 1785. Brasher half guineas are seen occasionally (Eric Newman had one, dated 1760), but this is the only quarter guinea with his mark that weve recorded. The only smaller Brasher regulation is the 1749 Portugal 800 reis, ex Roehrs, that weighed 26.9 grains. This appears to be the earliest host coin known for a Brasher mark, though a John Burger regulation is known on a 1716 guinea.With all these superlatives, this diminutive coin packs an impressive historical and numismatic punch: a high grade witness to the days immediately following the British occupation of New York, the early Republic in the era of Hamilton, the legendary Ten Eyck Collection, and the awe-inspiring Garrett Collection. Ten Eyck acquired this coin before his death in 1910, probably decades earlier. When B. Max Mehl cataloged it along side a 1787 Brasher doubloon and the 1786 Lima Style Brasher doubloon, he noted that it was "the smallest gold coin with Brashers stamp. The first I have seen." A full century has passed, and both of Mehls observations are still true today.Ex James Ten Eyck Collection, before 1910; B. Max Mehls sale of the James Ten Eyck Collection, May 1922, lot 377-A; John Work Garrett Collection; our (Bowers and Ruddys) sale of the Garrett Collection for The John Hopkins University, Part IV, March 1981, lot 2342.
