1786 New Jersey Copper. Maris 24-R, W-4975. Rarity-5. Narrow Shield, Curved Plow Beam. VF-35 BN (PCGS). 149.8 grains. 27.9 mm. A sharp and appealing example of this rare variety, offering sharpness that surpasses several in the SHI Census. Medium brown with good detail and visual appeal. Magnification reveals some fine granularity, trivial on the glossy and even obverse, a bit more notable but still pretty minor on the reverse. The sharpness is excellent, seemingly full EF by detail alone, with a horsehead that shows bold relief and a shield with abundant internal detail. The obverse is aligned to 11:00, with denticles missing in the upper left quadrant but bold elsewhere. The die edge is visible at lower right. The reverse is nearly ideally centered, missing just a few denticles at the bottom. Some obverse denticles right of 6:00 show a loss of patina, probably from an attempt to remove a bit of harmless verdigris trapped there. This piece is probably of similar quality overall to some in the lower reaches of the Condition Census, perhaps not as smooth as some, but certainly sharper than most. A single Unc is known, along with a high end AU. The Ford-Partrick coin was called Fine in the 2003 Ford sale but is listed as an EF in the SHI Census. It was sold in a NGC Fine-15 holder in the March 2021 Partrick sale (for what its worth, your cataloger thought it was VF when he saw it in 2003). The rest of the census is composed of the Maris-Garrett EF and several nice VFs. Most of these lack significant shield detail, giving this specimen a leg up in at least one regard. PCGS# 767885. From the Sydney F. Martin Collection. Earlier acquired at the Trevose Coin Show, July 1999.