Lot 3577
1652 Massachusetts Willow Tree Shilling Noe 3-D Rarity-7. Rather glossy mix of light silvery steel and dark grayish steel. The planchet shows minor to moderate roughness indicative of being lost in soil for some time, but much of the roughness has been smoothed away leaving faint toolmarks in a couple places, hence the "tooled" designation by NCS. These toolmarks are most visible around the W in NEW and in the area within the circle of beads under ATH on the tree side, but they are not especially distracting. The legends are mostly clear, which is quite unusual for a Willow Tree Shilling, but a few letters are faint or missing and the tree is only partially visible. The XII denomination is relatively strong and the 16 and 2 of the date can be made out without difficulty while the 5 is faint at best. This example was double struck, as were many of the type, but the offset between impressions is substantial on this piece. The doubling is obvious and rather dramatic at DOM, which reads DOOM with the two O's overlapping only slightly. Similar dramatic doubling shows at the second A and the H in MASATHVSETS and on the W in NEW. Overall a quite decent example of this extremely rare type in spite of the defects. The weight is listed as 66.70 grains on the NCS label.
Estimated Value $20,000 - 30,000.
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