“1711-G” French Colonies 30 Deniers, or Mousquetaire. Lyon (?) Mint or unknown counterfeiter’s den. Vlack-4. Breen-Unlisted. Rarity-8. AU Details--Environmental Damage (PCGS). A piece that is fairly famous among specimens in this series, plated in Vlack and still unique as far as we know. After Syd bought it in our January 2008 Americana sale, which included Vlacks own collection, Jacques St. Arnaud wrote about it in the Spring 2009 issue of the <em>C4 Newsletter </em>under the title "Unusual Mintmarks on 30 Deniers Coins of the Mousquetaire Series - Genuine or Counterfeit." Vlack went back and forth between thinking this was a Lyon Mint coin (with an erroneous G mintmark instead of the correct D for Lyon) and a circulating counterfeit. St. Arnaud leaned heavily toward the counterfeit explanation, and your cataloger agrees. The piece appears to be struck in pure copper (an important characteristic that could be easily proven and might serve as definitive evidence). While the engraving quality is good, and the letterforms are quite close, the lines of the mousquetaire cross are not quite straight. This piece is fairly even dark olive with some earthen highlights and hints of encrustation. A light crease or bend runs from 12 oclock to 3 oclock on the reverse. The G mintmark is double punched, as are some other letters. Centering is imperfect on both sides, beyond the expected range on authentic pieces, oriented toward 5 oclock on the obverse. This series has few marquee rarities, but this much-discussed piece deserves to be counted among their number. PCGS# 905497. From the Sydney F. Martin Collection. Earlier ex Robert A. Vlack Collection; our (Stack’s) Americana sale of January 2008, lot 5043.
