The Coin That Fooled an Expert

Back in the 1800s, Dr. Edward Maris had a growing interest in the coinage of the state of New Jersey that had been issued by some coiners a little under a century before. In 1881, he published his second book that he had written. It was titled Historical Sketch of the Coins of New Jersey and had the history of the coppers and then described the different die varieties which had been found on them. Twelve years before he had his book published about the coppers, Maris was looking through the catalog of the September 1869 auction catalog of the collection of Capt. Edward P. Thorn of Plainfield, New Jersey which was being auctioned off by Ebenezer Locke Mason and he noted that on lot 617, there was a 1787 New Jersey Copper. The description of the copper in the catalog was longer than most other descriptions which was unusual and this caught his attention so he decided to take a closer look at it. As he read the description, he got excited! The description said Horse head to the left; might be termed fine for this variety; large planchet sharp and excellent impression the only one of this variety and date that we have ever seen or heard of. He had been collecting the copper coins of the state of New Jersey by all of the different varieties that he had happened to come across, but he had never heard of one dated 1787 whose head was facing left. When the auction of September 6th came along, Dr. Maris had a handful of money and was ready to bid till he won! A bidding battle ensued and when Dr. Maris placed the costly bid of $25 ($567 today), the other bidder finally needed to give up the highly desired lot. After winning the lot for the exorbitant price of $25 (remember- back in that day a dollar had more spending power and there was less collectors which make more demand this could have easily bought a Mint State Libertas Americana medal, for example.) He published in the American Journal of Numismatics (AJN), One of this new variety has never before been offered at public auction, nor has an account of it been published in any periodical or scientific work

Subsequently, Maris sent the coin of to another expert on colonial coins, Sylvester Sage Crosby, to show Crosby Mariss new and wonderful discovery. When the coin arrived, Crosby carefully examined it and then wrote a long letter to send back with the coin. He did not want to send the letter, as he knew it would be extremely sad for Maris to read, but against all of his sorrows, he knew it needed to be done. Because the letter sent to Maris is so long, I will just tell you the main things that the letter said. The most heartbreaking thing that Crosby wrote was that the coppers reverse was in an unaltered state from the dies of what would become Maris 63-q but the obverse had been altered from a copper with a horse head facing right to a horse head facing left. He also stated that the engraving job looked like it had been done by a person (Smith of Ann Street) who had also re-engraved cents of 1793 1795 to make them look like they have a higher grade. Later on in the letter, Crosby also said that he had a cent exactly like it, the head engraved left and with the reverse that would be classified as reverse q, 12 years later. The engraver obviously was smart enough to hunt out coins made by the same reverse die. In the letter, Crosby fortunately gave us a way to tell the two coins apart, Mariss had a larger break on the left side of the shield.

The exact coin that fooled Maris has been identified today because it exists with the latest die state which has a larger break on the left side of the shield. This die state gives us a confirmation on an important coin from the 18th century, a coin that fooled an expert. Source