🥇 BANNER !!! 1652 Pine Tree Shilling !!!

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Almost had a heart attack today when I dug an odd square shaped piece of metal. Looked closer and saw 1652 and about collapsed. It looks clipped but its near full weight at 4.4 grams. Were these clipped like this at the mint sometimes? I havent done a thing to it other than rinse it off with fresh water. Scared to do anything to it really as it looks to have great details underneath. EDIT: I did q-tip some of the flakyness off on the obverse but Im not going any farther for now

 

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Thanks. Im extremely lucky to get this especially outside of New England. I have since found one other post from another forum about a whole tree shilling found in Virginia. It was a small planchet variety as are most dug examples so even more lucky to get the earlier large planchet. The latesummer/fall season has been very successful. Gonna have to lower my expectations for the new year

 

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[nkellam22]

Amazing find
People used to clip silver and gold coins to get a small amount of silver or gold. They would then spend the coin like normal. After a while they would have a small pile of silver and gold leftover for free. Thats why milled coins were invented.

 

[Calabash Digger]

 

[Mi$terG]

WOW! That is a beauty! Looks like the same Noe as mine- but you have a lot more of yours than I do! Also, doesn't have the fish-shaped lines on the obverse, which makes me think that it's probably an earlier strike. Congratulations on an AMAZING coin find!

 

[Treasureman25]

Very impressive! Good job man!

 

[toasted]

WOW! That is a beauty! Looks like the same Noe as mine- but you have a lot more of yours than I do! Also, doesn't have the fish-shaped lines on the obverse, which makes me think that it's probably an earlier strike. Congratulations on an AMAZING coin find!

Thanks. Congrats on yours. Yours is indeed the same variety as mine(noe 1). I was very lucky to get a full weight example as the majority of my cobs have been heavily clipped much like your tree coin. Pretty common practice back then. I even found a 1/8 cut pine tree about 18 months ago

 

[alaskaseeker]

Great find for sure...

 

[steelheadwill]

Nice recovery you got there ��
Good job identifying the type AND die state.
On viewing it from the side, you should observe
a distinct sinusoidal curving of the flan.
This is a result of using a rocker type press,and curved dies.
A similar press is shown below.
They literally stretched the flan,(or strip of silver, whether
they were cut before or after striking is still debated.)
From 12oclock to 6.
This is only extant on Oak tree issues and the large planchet Pines,
The New England issues and Willow trees were hammer struck,
Small planchet Pines were struck in a screw press.
I like that cut pine tree too.
Keep em coming.

 

[West Jersey Detecting]

Second one I've seen dug outside of New England in a week! Congrats!

 

[Digger RJ]

So Awesome!!!! Still Droooooling!!

 

[Royn2751]

Congratulations on that beautiful bit of history.

 

[Scrappy]

Way to go Toasty! I haven’t been online much and didn’t see your big news! Congratulations

 

[toasted]

Way to go Toasty! I haven’t been online much and didn’t see your big news! Congratulations

Thanks. Yeah alot of the guys from a few years ago that primarily hunted colonial dont come on here or get out much possibly for whatever reason. Im sure you’d appreciate the 2 and 4 Reales cobs Ive recently pulled as well. I miss seeing all the awesome stuff you guys find too

 

[tabman]

That is one super find! Big Congrats!

tabman

 

[Scrappy]

Thanks. Yeah alot of the guys from a few years ago that primarily hunted colonial dont come on here or get out much possibly for whatever reason. Im sure you’d appreciate the 2 and 4 Reales cobs Ive recently pulled as well. I miss seeing all the awesome stuff you guys find too

Ive missed it but that’s alright. I’m back in it again after a work/family hunting hiatus. I’ll look up your cob finds. Only cobs I’ve ever found have been 1/2’s and 1’s. No mas

 

[BigWaveDave]

Yeah, no clue how I missed this.... oh yeah, my password got banned.
Congrats my friend, awesome

 

[Digger RJ]

Stillllll drooooooling.....!!!!!

 

[DownEast_Detecting]

First off congrats, super find. There was at an auction in Maine 2 weeks ago with one of these. That was graded VF-20 and honestly yours looks better than that one. Actually yours looks quite a bit better than most. I would get it professionally cleaned, graded and put in a case. But that’s just me. It gotta be worth thousands. Check out eBay for how horrible some of the conditions are for being graded so well. Just an example...


https://www.ebay.com/itm/1652-Massa...rsOtherItemsV2&_trksid=p2332490.c101096.m3021

Amazing find
People used to clip silver and gold coins to get a small amount of silver or gold. They would then spend the coin like normal. After a while they would have a small pile of silver and gold leftover for free. Thats why milled coins were invented.

Yes, I was surprised I didn’t see more people chiming in as to why old coins are sometimes missing pieces. As you stated people used to shave the edges of coins. And keep a “scrap” pile going to melt down later for extra profit. That’s why they started putting the ridged edges on them. To make that practice impossible, and to curb counterfeiting. But also when you see an old coin that looks like it was cut in half or a piece was cut off. It’s because that’s how people made change back in the day. If they needed half the value of a coin for a transaction. And didn’t have any smaller denomination coins. They would cut the coin in half. Problem solved. Isn’t this where the “pieces of 8” came from?

Congrats again!

 

[Digger RJ]

Such an Awesome Find!!!! Congrats!!!!!!!

 

[Whatdayagot]

Sweet!! Congratulations !!! X10