1792 Pattern Quarter in pewter

EagleEye

This in the New York Historical society.

Pattern quarter

OBJECT NUMBER:
INV.13862a
DESIGNER: Joseph Wright
DATE: 1792
MEDIUM: Pewter
DIMENSIONS: Diameter: 29.1mm, 16 g
MARKS: Struck: Obverse: "LIBERTY/1792" Struck: Reverse: "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA"
DESCRIPTION: Pattern quarter with plain edge; coin alignment of dies. Obverse: Bust of Liberty with head facing right. Reverse: an eagle standing on a half globe.
GALLERY LABEL: This trial strike of a U.S. Quarter, one of only five such pieces known to survive, was made from a die engraved by Mint engraver Joseph Wright. The die broke in hardening, and no coins were ever minted from the pattern.

In the Heritage sale of the Partrick sale 1/15:5512 it says that this was discovered in 2002. Does anyone recall the specifics about the discovery? The NYHS apparently has two different ones.

oih82w8

Nice one...always neat to see patterns.

messydesk

That's such a beautiful design. One must wonder what our early coinage would have looked like had Wright survived the summer of 1793.

golden

I had one in my hand about a year ago. That is one pattern that I have never liked.

CaptHenway

Love it!

EagleEye

It probably would have been a good idea to read the Heritage write-up:

For many years, the population profile of the Eagle-on-Globe coin in white metal paralleled that of the same coin in copper - one institutional piece and one example held privately. In 2002, Anthony Terranova discovered and, along with Michael Hodder authenticated two additional white metal pieces at the New-York Historical Society. Chronicled on the front page of Coin World on June 9, 2003, the spectacular find doubled the known population from two to four. Society associate curator Margaret K. Hofer noted "We were unaware of their significance until we had them on display with other Colonial coinage." The Society initially discovered the two coins during an inventory of the coin, medal, button, and badge collections. An announcement of the discovery was made May 17, 2003 as part of the American Numismatic Society's Coinage of the Americas Conference. In email to the cataloguer, Margaret Hofer indicated that there is "no record of when the pieces entered the collection. The New-York Historical Society was founded in 1804 and numismatics were among the early items collected ... the Joseph Wright pieces were probably early gifts."

The New-York Historical Society has revealed other numismatic treasures, including the Horatio Gates Comitia Americana medal in gold, and prototype sketches of John Ward Dunsmore's Washington Inspecting the First Money Coined by the United States. Researcher Katherine Jaeger (now Katherine Moller de Silva) hit similar paydirt with a February 2006 Numismatist article which detailed dies and medals of the American Institute discovered at the New-York Historical Society. While the two Eagle-on-Globe quarter dollars located at the New-York Historical Society are compelling from a historical point of view, they do nothing to change the collectability of the situation - with three of the four known coins permanently housed in institutional collections, the present coin remains the only example available to the collecting public.

NumisOxide

Amazing!

gonzer

The minimalistic look is very appealing.

ms70

Love it.

Unknown

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Quarternut

Information and pictures of all the known 1792 pattern quarters was presented in the appendix of my book on the early quarters that was published in 2008 (See my sigline to order a copy...), including the examples in pewter found in the NYHS collection.

QN

illini420

Would have been really cool for the U.S. Mint to use that design for their 225th Anniversary gold coin this year...

CascadeChris

@illini420 said:
Would have been really cool for the U.S. Mint to use that design for their 225th Anniversary gold coin this year...

For sure! It's too bad politics got in the way

MrEureka

Has anyone ever tried punch-linking these patterns to other 1792 or 1793 issues?

MrEureka

And then there's the related story of the 1794 Starred Reverse Cent.

old.stacksbowers.com/NewsMedia/PressReleases/TabId/744/ArtMID/2700/ArticleID/621/1794-Starred-Reverse-Cent.aspx

ricko

Thanks for the interesting history Rick.... The NYHS seems to have some great stuff, and also seems to have storage comparable to many museums.. who knows what will appear next... would love to have a job searching the storage room(s).... Cheers, RickO

Lakesammman

I'll never own one so bought a counterfeit. Thanks for posting the info!

Baley

@Lakesammman said:
I'll never own one so bought a counterfeit. Thanks for posting the info!

I've got an example of the COPY produced by the Gallery Mint, in compliance with the HPA so it's not a "counterfeit"

EagleEye

From Alan Weinberg: He says that he found them in the NYHS in 1999. Didn't report it to the numismatic press at the time. Tried to trade one of them for a gold medal worth $150K+. It didn't happen. The curators had no idea of its value to numismatics prior to that. They didn't know how they were accessioned, but he believes they had been there since 1808.

Just a guess, but perhaps these were once part of the Rittenhouse collection, which may have also held Tradedollarnut's 1794 dollar and the specimen 1792 half Disme. What a collection that would have been! I wonder what else Rittenhouse might have had.

GoBust

Trying to assemble the set of 1792 designs was a long term goal I've chased. The Wright quarter clearly the key. Although not nearly the condition of the white metal pieces in the museum, the modestly circulated, white metal piece from the Patrick collection had become one of my favorite coins in my set. I never thought i would have a chance to become a steward to such a piece of history. If only for a little while of its history. But assemling the five designs had been an exciting process. Thanks for posting on the Wright quarter, I've always felt it was under studied and less appreciated than the other 1792 patterns which are more available (relstively speaking of course).

TwoSides2aCoin

A short , and rich history. We have a need for this subject (numismatics) , in school.

tradedollarnut

Would love to see that set displayed by Pcgs sometime!

GoBust

I just went through the process if crossing the Wright quarter and a few other 1792 patterns. It would be a small but fun display.

specialist

I never want to see another 1792 coin again in my life!!! Don't care how neat these things might be.

Regulated

Looking at that picture, it doesn't seem like the centers of the stars have the odd tiny dots struck into them that appear on the copper example. I need to somehow get better photos of these. It's also not lapped as much as the copper piece.

aus3000tin

Rittenhouse??

Who else watches the TV show Timeless ??

Chris

Regulated

@aus3000tin said:
Rittenhouse??

Who else watches the TV show Timeless ??

Chris

The fact that he's the badguy/founder of the evil organization really bummed me out. But at least his name is getting some use, I guess.

BlindedByEgo

Thank you, Rick. I had never seen that before. Fascinating coin and interesting history.

Zoins

I think this is a beautiful coin. The obverse looks more elegant to me than many other early US designs.

I'll have to be happy with my two Ron Landis / Gallery Mint Museum pieces, to have an unobstructed view of each side.

Regulated

The portrait really looks like Anne Willing Bingham, who seems to have been everyone's feminine ideal in Philadelphia at the time.

It's worth noting that she socialized with Joseph Wright, and was the daughter of Thomas Willing, who at the time was president of the First Bank of the United States, and had been Robert Morris's business partner and lifelong friend.

ms70

Love the reverse!

BryceM

Now there's an eagle design I hadn't seen before.

Love it!

Regulated

Not too dissimilar from this one:

Coinlearner

Here is what the Gallery Mint copies look like in silver..