New Jersey Coppers R.8 Questions?
kenriles012
Posts: 170 ✭✭
In looking there are a good amount of NJ Coppers from 1786-88 that have 1-3 known but doing some digging and very few seem to ever come up for auction. An oddly low amount. There are tons of die marriages of other coins with 1-3 examples that tend to show up every know and then but I looked at some dealers, Heritage, Stacks, Goldberg, and even Ebay (not much there) and after giving it a look I saw a horribly beat up and 3rd known 1786 18-L sold for $14100 last year and the auction notes the 2nd example (which was VF35) sold for $105k on Ebay (Wow, did not know that) back in 2011.
Oddly I don't see much beyond that. I found 2 sales of the 18-L but I see over 2 dozen R.8 varieties and oddly the only 2 sales records I see anywhere near recent are for both an 18-L.
So it got me thinking; are most of the R.8 NJ Coppers in museums? I can't imagine all of them are tucked away in private collections. I did see a lot of the R.8 have origins in the Garrett collection but then they seem to mostly of gone off the grid (most of them for decades).
Heck I started looking at some of the R.7 ones and shocking to me how few have had a sale in last even 15 years; some I find nothing at all.
Just interesting to me.
Comments
Most are in private collections and most sales likely don't go through public sources. It's a small club. Your best bet is to join EAC and C-4, go to the meetings, and buddy up to the leading dealers...that may be the only way you'll know if any of the ultra-rares ever see the light of day.
So you think most are sold private sales? Makes sense to me just seemed very odd. You would expect see at least some. Odd that (from what I see at least) of the few dozen R.8 that are known to exist the only 2 to sell within the last 10 years are both 18-L.
Theory is that the 18-L is a die marriage in which both the obverse and reverse are actually very common just rare together. It looks like most of the other R.8 are usually have at least one totally unique or very rare die used so they are going to be easily spotted while an 18-L could go unnoticed for a long, long time as both dies are very common hence the 2 recent discoveries.
They may not have sold, just if they were, they may be private. I know there are/were some of these specialized collections that have been held for decades, combine that with the rarity, and you don't get many shots. The guy that owns #1, #2 and #3 all know each other and have likely been nagging the others for years. Also there are disagreements on colonials about which one is actually the best...sometimes they're all fugly, it just comes down to personal preference.
Truly rare coins... I did read - oh, about 8 years ago or so, of one found metal detecting... not sure what happened to it.. was a big deal at the time. Cheers, RickO
An extremely rare NJ found? Remember what it was or where it was found?
@kenriles012 ...Sorry... I do not recall the details... it was at least eight years ago and I read of it on an MD forum... not the one here...I know it caused a bit of excitement then... Wish I could remember more. Cheers, RickO
I have a 1786 25-S R5+ that my grandmother gave me in the 70's.