1722-H French Colonies Sou, or 9 Deniers. La Rochelle Mint. Martin 2.22-D.8b, W-11840. Rarity-4. VF-20 (PCGS). Attractive light reddish chocolate-brown color and surfaces that have several little scratches on each side but hardly any roughness giving the coin positive overall eye appeal. Weakly struck at the lower right obverse and upper right reverse with portions of the legends missing as a result. Where struck up, the detail seems easily sharper than the assigned grade, and accompanying this coin is an ICCS ticket graded EF-45 from a previous certification. This is a fascinating reverse die that began its life with no mintmark (D.8a) and later had the mintmark added (D.8b as here). The mintmark is quite bold on this piece making it an ideal example of the subvariety. PCGS# 905884. From the Sydney F. Martin Collection. Earlier ex John Kraljevich, January 2010.
