1652 pine tree shilling

[Numismatics4life]

I can't seem to figure out if this is authentic would someone be able to help me?
here is the coin

 

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[LawrencetheMDer]

The colonial doesn't look real. Check the sides of the coin for a seam running all along the edge. If present it is a cast counterfeit. As to the story about the Mintmaster giving away his daughter with her weight in New England shillings - rumor has it she was real ugly....and very very small...

 

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[l.cutler]

I have heard the dowry story since I was a kid, I am pretty sure it was in one of my elementary school reading books. Great story, unlikely but a neat story nonetheless. One part of the story that is indisputable is that the husband of the daughter was one of the judges in the Salem witch trials, Samuel Sewall.

 

[Iron Patch]

Does it make me a bad guy to say I'd have married her in a heartbeat lol

So looks like you're punching above your weight with that holed shilling. ....just don't say a word or she'll be gone.

 

[Ahab8]

So looks like you're punching above your weight with that holed shilling. ....just don't say a word or she'll be gone.

Lmao. That is some funny sh*t

 

[Ahab8]

Wish I had her weight in shillings

 

[ARC]

Imagine... you are detecting...
first you find an old large scale...
then you find bucket rings...
heh... heart starts going.

 

[Numismatics4life]

hey so I measured the coin and it is 27mm in diameter and In the picture I had the coin in bad lighting it is actually a tarnished looking silver. I actually found the coin while hiking in the woods a couple years ago and completely forgot about it until yesterday.

 

[ARC]

wow you are back ...
what is the weight ?

 

[Numismatics4life]

I wasn't able to weigh the coin since I do not own a scale

 

[ARC]

I think the size on that coin is supposed to be 29.5 mm according to Ahab.

 

[ARC]

But I am actually coming up with your size...
Measurement: Dia. 27.5 mm, Wt. 4.120 g

 

[ARC]

Until disproven... take great care of this coin.
IF real it would valuable...
there are people here who say fake...
but I am not convinced.

 

[cw0909]

is that shadows under the XII

 

[Numismatics4life]

ok I managed to weigh the coin and it weighs 4.19 grams and the edge of the coin doesn't have a seam that would have been left by the casting process. also I honestly do not know if the coin is real because I specialize in coins from the mid 1800's to the late 1900's. also im only 14 so I have only had about 7 years of experience with numismatics.

 

[ARC]

Do you have a magnet? try a magnet to it...
see if any reaction... use strongest magnet you have.

 

[Numismatics4life]

let me look to see if they are shadows and there is no magnetic reaction at all

 

[Numismatics4life]

honestly I cannot tell if they are shadows

 

[Numismatics4life]

and absolutely no reaction

 

[ARC]

Massachusetts Pine Tree Shilling,

As early as 1650, the colony of Massachusetts Bay was a commercial success. But an inadequate supply of money put its future development in jeopardy. England was not inclined to send gold and silver coins to the colonies, for they were in short supply in the mother country.

Taking matters into their own hands, Boston authorities allowed two settlers, John Hull and Robert Sanderson, to set up a mint in the capital in 1652. The two were soon striking silver coinage - shillings, sixpences, and threepences. Nearly all of the new coins bore the same date: 1652.

This was the origin of America's most famous colonial coin, the pine tree shilling. The name comes from the tree found on the obverse. It may symbolize one of the Bay Colony's prime exports, pine trees for ships' masts. Massachusetts coinage not only circulated within that colony, but was generally accepted throughout the Northeast, becoming a monetary standard in its own right.

Why the 1652 date? Some believe that it was intended to commemorate the founding of the Massachusetts mint, which did occur in 1652. Others believe the choice was a reflection of larger political events. Coinage was a prerogative of the King. In theory, these colonists had no right to strike their own coins, no matter how great their need.

But in 1652, there was no king. King Charles had been beheaded three years previously, and England was a republic. The people in Massachusetts may have cleverly decided to put that date on their coinage so that they could deny any illegality when and if the monarchy were reestablished.

This "1652" shilling is likely to have been minted around 1670. In 1682, the Hull/Sanderson mint closed after closer royal scrutiny of the operation.

 

[Cross Potent]

cw0909, I think I see COPY.